


Damned to Repeat

by Dach (orphan_account)



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Abuse of Google-Translate-ed Foreign Languages, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Closeted Character, Emotional Abuse, Emotional Hurt, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fluff, Foster Care, Hamilton's mental health is Not Great, Hints towards religion, Hugs, Humor, Hurricanes, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mental Breakdown, My Writing is as Bipolar as Spring Weather, Nonbinary Marquis de Lafayette, Occasional Dark Themes, Panic Attacks, Possible Trigger Warnings(?), References to Canon, Reincarnation, Starbucks, Tears, This is Like a Cesspool of Tropes, This isn't quite a Reincarnation AU, Time Travel Fix-It, touch-starvation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-20
Updated: 2017-11-29
Packaged: 2018-09-25 12:18:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 42,967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9820232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/Dach
Summary: Some have theorized that, when you die, your entire life flashes before your eyes. Alexander's almost positive that to experience such a thing would be better than… this.Simply put, God finds fit to thrust Alexander and some of those he's closest to into the modern world to live their lives for a second time. A literal god-sent opportunity. Easy enough, really. Right?





	1. God Knows

Cold, tearing pain.

It was funny, Alexander Hamilton thought. Soldiers had always described a bullet as feeling hot in one’s flesh. After he was shot in the leg, Marquis de Lafayette had said - Lafayette. A friend he was leaving behind, to be either swept up in the torrent of musical notes that was this great symphony of life, or to be deafened of them. He should have included more than a few scant pages in his letter to Lafayette. Hopefully, Eliza - oh. Eliza.

Oh, dear Eliza, her dark hair falling past her shoulders, her bright eyes, that wide smile that made her cheeks dimple. But the smile wouldn't, not anymore. Not anymore. Now, just the thought of him would tumble tears from eyes, not laughter from lips. He wouldn’t be there to brush the sadness away, to kiss her tear-tracked cheeks until she giggled and pushed him back. Now, he would be the cause of her sorrow, and others would be of ability to do nothing more than to look on. The single page of thought he had deigned to grant her - Alexander hadn’t thought it necessary to write any more - couldn’t convey his regret enough.

Perhaps his younger children might watch her misery, and fall into their own wells of regret. Alexander wouldn’t be there to stop them, after all. But they were young, and could wipe the slate of their minds clear, blank and anticipating.

Alexander’s friends (he almost laughed; who would have thought the loudmouth orphan immigrant could have gained any  friends by his time of death?) could not. They had seen too much, Lafayette, Hercules, and yes, though he was loathe to admit it, Jefferson. Jefferson had built him, challenging him at every turn of debate and grating his patience to shreds so that the tormented remnants might heal and scar, making his resolution stronger. It was conceited of him to invoke their sorrow.

But what of his other friends? What of the friends that made him decide to throw away his shot to begin with? The ones that were dead?

What of John Laurens, his smile - no, grin - wide, his skin starred with freckles? What of George Washington, the man who was practically his father, deep laugh and all? What of his bright son, Philip, whom Alexander might as well as led to the slaughter himself? His son’s enemy was no honorable man, and perhaps, deep down, Alexander had understood that while he was instructing Philip to fire into the air. And his mother, the arms of comfort that he only so vaguely remembered? Her voice was another matter; gentle and lulling, it was, weighing his eyelids and relaxing his muscles until he felt like a boy again, ready to collapse into a boneless heap upon his ratty mattress, exhausted by a day’s antics. Alexander was ready to see them. He hadn’t gotten to grow old, but damn it, he was ready for it.

Others may not be, though, Alexander realized. He forced his eyes up to see the look of fear on Burr’s face slide to shock as Alexander stumbled forward. Offhandedly, Alexander noticed that his body was falling, cleaving towards the ground as if it might through water. He blinked, his vision black momentarily, and then he saw light again. Or rather, Burr's expression of fear.

Burr, his very first “friend”, if one might call him that - he doubted that future historians would - no doubt they would be greatly critical of his actions. Alexander wanted to yell, perhaps demand that the people - people he had freed with the aid of his shooter - should forgive his killer. Oh yes, killer. Alexander had known it the moment he had fired his pistol above Burr’s shoulder; the moment he felt the bullet between his ribs, shattering his sternum on contact. Anybody else would be yelling in pain, but Alexander was weary, and he had seen too much, and he had endured too much, and he had fought too much; the pain was locked in the corner of his mind.

The corner of his mind was an interesting place. Grotesque, any mental doctor would have called it. It was where Alexander manhandled the thoughts he didn’t confront, the pain he didn’t register. The corner of his mind had been last used in the war, and before that, when he had been roaming the streets of New York City, plagued by the pangs of starvation. Now, he figuratively padlocked the door, condemning all pain, all tangible feeling to it, allowing his eyes one last sweep of the world before he closed- John .

Right there. Standing behind Burr with tears in his eyes. Did no one else see him? Alexander tried to call attention to the brown-haired spectral, but all that he heard was the faint gurgle of blood in his lungs. Likely, the shattered bone had managed to splinter its way into the lining. He felt a hand rest on his shoulder, and he glanced up, looking towards the sky and past the panicked doctor. George Washington, regret in his eyes but a smile on his face. John joined Alexander’s surrogate father. A moment later, they were met by his mother, and then Philip. His boy’s smile was as carefree as his poems had been.

Slowly, his face utterly relaxed, Alexander’s eyes slid closed. And then he was flying in darkness.

Occasionally, voices would reach him; at first Eliza’s murmurings; Angelica’s joined his wife’s halfway. His would children ask innocent questions, being the little angels that they were. There was a one-sided conversation with Thomas Jefferson, the pauses unnaturally heavy and frequent. Grieved apologies from Theodosia on behalf of her father. Hercules Mulligan’s laments, the burly man’s sobs no doubt shaking his shoulders as he regaled and told Alexander’s still form what Lafayette would say. Finally, on the morning of July 11th, Alexander Hamilton slipped away, only vaguely aware of his half-conscious, incoherent murmurs ceasing.

He knows the exact moment that he dies, when the black surrounding him turns white, and the noise of the horses on the street outside cuts off abruptly.

His ears are filled with a pleasant nothing.

Slowly, he opens his eyes, and then he’s standing, and then he’s running. Sobs rise in his throat as he throws his arms around John’s slim waist, and he feels years younger at the laugh of his old friend. He is younger indeed, the streaks of silver of his temple having been washed away with his life. John laughs breathlessly, and then Alexander feels him step back.

Alexander's arms are empty for a moment, and then his son is leaping into them, burying his face his father’s chest and crying silently. Then his mother is behind him. He isn’t sure when she arrived, but he is grateful for the way her arms encircle them in soothing relief.

They break apart, and George Washington steps up, his eyes glinting and his teeth bared in a grin of sheer pride. A grin spreads over Alexander’s own face, and he raises his hand to salute. The general copies the movement, and then Alexander’s cheek is pressed to the large man’s chest as he squeezes his surrogate father until the muscles in his arms ache. His shoulders shake and he notes a hot wetness on his cheeks. After a minute or an hour or however long it takes for Alexander to decide that measurements of time are impartial, he steps back.

“I missed you.”

Alexander’s voice is quiet and hoarse, rusty with disuse.

“I know,” It’s John who replies, approaching to lay a calming hand on his shoulder. “We’ve been waiting.”

Before Alexander can comment, or before his general loquaciousness can make itself at home once more, Washington begins to speak. “Son, you know that we would have waited centuries to see you. As much as I hate to sully our reunion,” the General trailed off slightly, and Philip picked up on the what Washington was apparently trying to say.

“Dad, God wants to see you!”

Apparently, Alexander’s lack of tact was inherited, and if Alexander hadn’t already been dead - it was still something he had to remind himself of - he might have fainted. Instead, he blinked. And stared.

“Philip…. God !?”

His son shrugged his shoulders slightly and fidgeted with the ruffles of his shirt. No one spoke.

“GOD!?”

“Yes.”

This wasn’t Philip answering, or Washington, or his mother, or John. This was a newer voice, higher in pitch, more joyful. Hamilton spun and was confronted with a grinning child. Behind him, he faintly heard the men hastily sketching bows, while his mother practically fell over in a clumsy curtsey.

The teen’s red curls reached his shoulders, and his tanned skin was dotted with freckles. His hips were fitted with slacks of denim, feet with shoes made of some kind of material Hamilton wasn’t even sure how to define, and his torso a large, gray, oversized… something. It wasn’t quite a jacket, and appeared to be made of the likes of cotton, only it appeared much softer-looking. A large pocket rested over the part of the clothing article covering kid’s stomach, and Alexander could see the tip of a hood from behind his mess of curls. The front of the clothing was emblazoned with the name ‘Seahawks’ stitched in shockingly green thread, and the cloth was stained in countless places. The boy couldn’t have been more than fourteen.

“God?” repeated Alexander, still in a state of disbelief. The kid nodded and hummed.

“Tha’d be me.”

Hamilton’s jaw dropped and he stood silent. God groaned.

“C’mon! Ageless entity speaking!? This is like, the best age to be! What’s the point of being a creaky old geezer, anyways? Respect?! Nah, dude; I’m God!”

Hamilton nodded, his mind racing to erase years of assumption. “Sorry. Err….”

After a silence, God laughed. “Hamilton at loss for words!? Well damn if that ain’t a first. Any ways, since we both know that you’re confused-”

Hamilton’s mouth opened as if to dispute it, then snapped shut as he flushed red. Beside him, he heard a chuckle escape John despite his friend's apparent efforts.

“I s’pose I’ll tell you.  _ God _ knows,” he winked, “that this lot has been waiting long enough.” God withdrew his hand from the pocket in the piece of clothing covering his torso to gesticulate wildly.

As he did, Alexander took the time to glance around at their surroundings. He shouldn’t have bothered. They were encased in some kind of white. Just solid, blank, confusing white. Their shadows were to only thing to cast dimension, not counting the gray file box that had appeared behind God.

God walked to the case and lifted the lid with a hum, sliding a black box not much larger than the novels Alexander had used to read out of the casing. Painstakingly, he turned it on its side and unlatched a small clasp to lift off the lid. Inside, rows and rows of thick, somehow immaculately unblemished, straight-edged paper cards were lined up. Alexander gaped. To think of how much better his papers would have looked written on those!

With a self-satisfied nod, God filed through them until he came to what seemed to be the correct one and withdrew it. Alexander could see that what appeared to be piece of patterned stained glass resided in the center of the card, much like a small window. “This is your era!” God announced, waving it back and forth with a grin.

Hesitantly, John asked, “Why does it have a picture of carpeting drawn on it?”

God nearly dropped it before snapping his fingers. At once, the pattern visibly shifted, although, without his glasses, Hamilton couldn’t perceive just what it had been changed to.

“Default thumbnail,” God said. Nobody in the group spoke, classing the word as yet another one that was clearly not of their time, much like “dude” and “geezer”. Wordless, they watched as a strange contraption appeared with a wave of God’s hand, and then, impressed murmurs escaped them as light emanated from a glass bulb. God slid the card into a metal slot, and at once, the window of glass projected a square of light onto an intangible wall. The white of their surroundings dimmed to a dulcet gray.

“Watch this!” exclaimed God, seeming remarkably the age he looked. With a smirk, he waved his hand once, and the pattern of the glass window shifted so that a picture of Valley Forge was projected. Hamilton couldn’t suppress the gasp that escaped him. The image was detailed, even depicting the branch that had been snapped by a young soldier with an unrealistic understanding of gravity.

God slipped a piece of metal through a groove, and the image changed. Instead of stepping forwards to immediately inquire as to just how the machine was performing such a function, Hamilton watched the pictures. His death - and wasn’t that an odd experience to view as an outsider. Eliza grieving. His kids growing up. Hercules’s death. Lafayette’s death. Eliza growing older. And then

The slideshow paused.

“ _Merde alors!_ ” (Holy shit!)

“Oh, HELL! ”

“Lafayette! Hercules!”

“Mister Hercules!”

“Son!”

“Herc! Laf!”

“What in Hell’s name is going on!?” Hercules finally shouted, his eyes wide at seeing Washington, Philip, John, and, Hamilton belatedly realized, himself. Not that Hercules himself wasn’t shocking the rest of them in return; like… well… everyone, it seemed, his physical form matched that of the man he had been during the earlier events of the war.

“ _D îtes-moi!_” (Tell me!) exclaimed Lafayette, his normally impeccable hair loosened about his shoulders. Nonetheless, he could look most dangerous when warranted. Absentmindedly, Hamilton echoed his words in English, automatically translating for the frenchman as part of a habit he hadn’t held since the end of the Revolutionary War.

Washington placed his hand on Lafayette’s shoulder, and the Frenchman calmed slightly, still bristling nonetheless. Noticing that Hercules’s gaze was fixed on him, John began stumbling through an explanation.

“Well… okay. First thing I guess you should know is that he,” Laurens motioned to God, who waved cheerfully, “is God,” Powering through his explanation, John continued, cutting off Hercules and Lafayette’s inevitable exclamations. “When we… died, we ended up here. God was here and he explained somewhat. He said that he’d say everything once everyone was here.”

“And not everyone is here,” God was saying, wiggling the piece of metal in its groove. “He’s been in a transportation delay so if you’ll hold on…”

A jerk to the switch, and then the metal slid smoothly again. Thomas Jefferson and James Madison appeared. “Oh, both of them!” God commented idly. Lafayette motioned for silence and both complied, too shocked to do much else. Not long after, Aaron Burr appeared, bent double and wheezing. He glanced up and his eyes landed on Hamilton.

As if slapped, Burr reeled back, falling to his knees, his shoulders shaking, his arms crossing, his hands clenching at the cloth of his sleeves, tears falling. Surprisingly, it was Philip who stepped forward, Alexander still too shocked to do so. “Hey,” said the teen, uncrossing Burr’s arms. “He forgives you. It was a duel. It wasn’t completely your fault. He’s sorry too.”

Burr shook his head bitterly, surprisingly humble. “No. I understood the terms, he understood the terms,” his eyes roamed over the group, then fell back to Hamilton. Alexander couldn’t help but to shift in place awkwardly. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking, truly. To think of how much more you could have done… I did a disservice to you and your friends personally, but I also did a disservice to America. Hamilton, you were a soldier, fighting forwards without restraint. I was your fellow soldier, who killed you because of a silly quarrel and forgot we were fighting on the same side. I don’t know how much more you could have accomplished if I hadn’t stolen your time, but that doesn’t matter. Slaves could have been freed, women given more rights - I know those were some of the stances you worked so hard to achieve.” Head bowed, he rose to his feet and stepped a little closer. “Hamilton, I’m sorry.”

Alexander smiled slightly, extending his hand. “It’s not hard to forgive you, Burr.”

Ever so carefully, Burr shook Hamilton’s hand. Behind them, God cleared his throat, and their heads snapped around. “Sorry,” Alexander apologized at once. God just waved an uncaring hand.

“‘S fine. Burr might feel a bit better if I told him that he didn’t rob your time, so to speak, though.”

Alexander glanced up.

“Call it whatever you may. Cliché TV trope. The goodness of my heart,” The corner of God’s mouth quirked into a smirk. “Reincarnation.”

Behind Hamilton, he could hear gasps. Thomas Jefferson stepped forwards, though. “Why?” he demanded, catching God as off guard as he appeared to catch the rest of their group. “I mean,” Jefferson hastily expanded, “we’ve contributed more than most others would ever get the chance to. Why are you giving this to us? Are you trying to give us a different experience?”

Without thinking, Hamilton stepped forwards to join Jefferson, prompting gasps from those behind the two. “I agree,” Hamilton said. “I would hate to be myself reincarnated as a barnacle.”

God rolled his eyes and huffed a sigh. “Call me lazy, but I’m proud of you lot. Most of my other creations are just wrong. Too faulted in some ways, too perfect in others, or as lazy as I am. You lot are my best creations as thus far. So... sue me for wanting to reuse you.

"In other words, you could have died in peace. I would have spared you this. This world though,” God shook his head despairingly, wearing an expression of grief strange to a fifteen-year-old’s face, “Hell, I wish that I could make more just like it. This one is so painstakingly perfect. Faulted perfect, injured perfect, and the only perfect that I had in mind when I inspired the word. It’s unique in that way, and so I only have one shot. To quote your letter, Hamilton,” God gestured to the short man, “‘I am not throwing away my shot’. I’m only gonna get one chance at this, and I like you lot.

“I’ve seen this world in all outcomes, but I never anticipated anything like,” God motioned at them, “this. I can’t change things. It would ruin it. Maybe not physically, or technologically, but it would, and I’d never be able to look at it the same. This was my favorite time-period from it, and damn if I’m not gonna cheat and bend the rules again. You guys are real revolutionaries, and I want another revolution. Maybe not in the sense that I chose for your lifetime, but I’ll bargain. When you are re-introduced to the world,” God laughed, shaking his head with a small smile, “it’s really not gonna know what hit it. We share mutual worship of each other, and I believe that you are what that this world needs. Please. I… I have plans that would make this easier. Just consider it?”

For a moment God looked heartbroken. It was a strange thing to consider; God looked heartbroken. And so Alexander complied.

He’d lived his life, yes. But he couldn’t just… it was unfathomable for him… just to leave? Maybe Alexander could relate to God; he loved the world, he cherished it, he cared for it. And he was just supposed to quit it? Leave forever? Leave contributing to the foolish people who could’t see what’s right in front of them?

“I’m not done living,” the words were out of his mouth before he had realized he had spoken them, and the look of sheer relief that washed over God’s face was thanks in itself.

“I never got to start,” Philip contributed.

“I can’t just leave now,” Thomas Jefferson said, a little grudgingly.

“Thomas is going and so am I,” Madison said. Thomas shot his friend a grateful look.

“If I could help….” Burr trailed off

“If I could have another shot, I think I could help too,” Hercules inserted firmly.

“To live a little longer, with my friends, no less, would be joy in itself,” Lafayette said.

“I wasn’t ready to go to begin with,” John laughed. “I still need to see what’ll happen if I mix shoe-polish with paint!”

There was silence as no others voices their consent. Hamilton turned. Washington sighed. “Son… I can’t. I’ve lived my time. I’m contributing where I could have. You have my apologies, but my time as has passed.”

Alexander’s mouth dropped open. Then he ran to his mother. “ _ Mamá no puedes! _ ” (Mother, you can not!)

She sighed, the corners of her mouth turning down. “ _ Mi hijo, no estoy ... no puedo ... el general lo dijo mejor. No puedo, hijo _ .” (My son, I'm not ... I cannot ... the general said it best. I can not, son.)

“ _ ¡Te acabo de encontrar, no puedes irte otra vez! _ ” (I just found you, you cannot leave again!)

“I wouldn’t be leaving, mijo.”

“But... what about Philip?! You won’t be able to see your grandson!”

God stepped in then, and never had Alexander wanted to punch a biblical figurehead more. “I’m eliminating the age difference between the older ones of you, but Philip will stay here for a little while. He’ll find you once he’s entered the world, but it won’t be for years more.”

For a moment, Hamilton fumbled in silence, then he groaned and embraced his mother, trying his hardest to will back the tears pricking at the corner of his eyes. “I can’t just…”

Alexander’s mother shushed him at once. Jefferson cleared his throat, and yep, he was still an obnoxious loudmouth with no consideration. Hamilton laughed wetly, and released his mother. God motioned for him to join the others, but he stepped forwards to Washington, saluting the general. Teary-eyed, Washington copied the motion, then swept him into a sturdy embrace. “Son, if you can, make me even more proud.”

Alexander nodded and withdrew. Then, even as he opened his mouth to refute the name Washington had called him by, he instead said, “If I’ve made you proud enough to call me ‘Son’, then I think I’ve all the motivation necessary to last a lifetime.”

Washington outright grinned and shook hands with the scholar. Alexander nodded and joined the line that his friends had formed. Not any sooner than had God opened his mouth to address them then had Lafayette burst from the line to wrap Washington in an embrace.

“Thank you for your teachings, mon général.”

“Good luck, Marquis de Lafayette.”

Jokingly, Lafayette saluted and rejoined the line with red cheeks, ducking his head in embarrassment. Jefferson rolled his eyes and Hercules grinned at his friend. Now, God started talking, seeming a little disgruntled at the constant interruptions.

“I will tell you now that I’m not above a little rule-changing. All parallels which would normally have been drawn between you and,” God chuckled, “what people now call ‘The Founding Fathers’ will not be mentally allowed.”

“Founding Fathers?” asked Alexander his eyes wide with shock. Perhaps he had secured a legacy after all.

“Indeed. I do believe you are on the slip of paper signifying ten dollars of their currency. You’ll meet at… what to call it...? You know what? I’m tired of originality. King’s College. Now say goodbye!” God was suddenly chipper again, his red hair bouncing as he raised his hands.

“Goodbye-”

And there was nothing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Extra:**   
>  _Alternative introduction of God to Lafayette and Hercules:_   
>  With no precedent, God said, “I’m God.”   
>  Silence from the two new arrivals. Then scoffs. God rolled his eyes and snapped his fingers. Beside him, a table appeared, chocolate cake on top seeming doused in melted chocolate and decoration. Another snap of his fingers and, spoon in hand, God assaulted the cake. Hamilton may be dead, but that didn’t mean that he was torn between clearing his throat or joining God.


	2. Reincarnation Doesn't Ease the Mind

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FYI, the capitalization in the name 'LeAiems' is me mocking the grammar of letters exchanged during the revolutionary war and the cultural building that came afterwards.
> 
> I thank Kenzie_Perth most graciously for putting up with my tense-switching.  
> That said: he laughed as he fall to the floor. (Yes, I know you just visibly cringed. I'm watching you, Kenzie)

When Alexander awoke, he did so to all-too-familiar screams. Not to bad ones, though. No, he awoke to the gleeful shouts of children, and the sounds of objects being kicked up and down the street, and of running feet. And he awoke to sunlight streaming through the window, and a hot, sweat-sticky sleeping mat underneath his back. Further down the street, he could hear pots clanking in controlled chaos, and the boisterous shouts of the older boys. And girls? Ah, perhaps the fight for equality hadn’t been abandoned after his death.

Knuckles rapping on the board serving to separate his small room from the rest of the house jolted him upright, and he was suddenly all too aware of his too-small frame. Alexander scrambled to his feet and nearly laughed in delight, rushing to the “door” and, lifting it carefully,  set it aside. At a table not four feet from his bedroom, a woman with an appearance remarkably similar to his true mother was setting the table with chipped, cheap china. He walked up, trying his hardest not to the show the uncomfort he harbored at his short stature. Oh, he had been short before, but this was crazy!

“Buenos dias, mama,” he tried, cautious of his language. The woman glanced up and smiled.

“As glad I am to hear to talk, you know better.”

Alexander nodded, confused but trying his best to appear scolded. “Of course.” When she hummed, not expanding, he ventured, “Why, if you might remind me again?”

Luckily, his “mother” was a kind woman, and she laughed. “Visitors want good English, mijo! I told you this before!” She allowed a hum of approval, though. “You sound better.”

Mentally, Alexander cursed. Of course a nine-year-old wouldn’t have the vocabulary of a public-speaker! “Thank you,” he said. The woman gave another hum - she seemed to do that a lot - and patted a chair. He hopped up and ate his slice of bread with a grin on his face. Perhaps this wouldn’t be so hard after all!

Five minutes later, Hamilton was doing his best to maintain an impassive face. Those kids had no idea how _hard_ it was not to freak out at the notion of this ‘plastic’. If it was a little weird to be fumbling a bottle-cap between his fingers on his way to school, no one mentioned it. Thank God for that.

 

~

 

~

 

School. Oh, it wasn’t even that, thought Hamilton, disgusted. He had sat through English (abhorrent), Maths (he wasn’t even going to begin), but it was American History that took the cake. The teacher talked to them like they were three! To be fair, it seemed as if Hamilton had been cursed with short stature in all his lives.

“Not true,” he eventually cut in. The teacher stopped talking at once, glancing to him with narrowed eyes.

“Excuse me?”

“I believe I said, ‘not true,’” replied Hamilton, steadfast, his arms crossed. “Lafayette’s last words in Valley Forge were not ‘And to your continued help’. As a matter of fact, they were actually, ‘Je m’ennuierai de toi, mon général. S’il vous plaît dire Martha pour assurer votre santé. C’est le travail de Hamilton à oublier de manger!’, which roughly translates to ‘I will miss you, Sir. Please tell Martha to ensure your health. It is the job of Hamilton to forget to eat!’”

The room was absolutely silent. Hamilton realized too late that he had spoken too much.

“How do you think that?” the teacher asked, her eyes wide with shock. It took everything he had to not let ‘I was there’ slip out of his mouth.

“I read frequently,” Alexander said instead.

“And speaking _French_!?”

“I read frequently.”

A blush was steadily spreading over his cheeks. The teacher sighed and tossed a textbook, which he caught before it hit the table with a what-would-be loud bang. “If you already know, stay quiet and read.”

Alexander, his cheeks now positively burning, nodded. In a move he hadn’t done since he was in school during his last life, he cracked open the book and settled it so obscured his head and shoulders, slumping behind it. After a good ten minutes of listening to the teacher drone incorrect facts, Hamilton shot a glance over his shoulder, suppressing a sigh at the raised eyebrow he was graced with from the kid behind him. He wouldn’t get away with writing, to be sure. Instead, he withdrew the ‘2004 World Almanac’, pressing weathered ‘post-its’ on unfamiliar words. And thus class dragged by.

By the time that they were released, half the kids were complaining about an abundance of homework, while the other half made of point of ignoring it in favor kicking a ball up and down and the dusty street. Hamilton honestly didn’t understand what they were complaining about; they _all_ got a formal education, no matter their parents’ pay! Apparently, these  kids had priority issues. Nonetheless, they laughed and shrieked just as they did.

Hamilton had to hide a grin at the childrens’ antics, hiking his canvas bag further up on his shoulders and trotting down to where some of the adults were sunbathing on the beach. With a suppressed sigh, he withdrew the English homework; the only paper he hadn’t so much as spared a glance at yet. A single scan revealed it to be of even lower quality than he would have expected, but _why the hell was he expected to know all this damn spelling!?_ He flattened it over his thigh and moved to begin.

Then, Alexander froze. In his hand was the ‘pen’ that had laid in the bottom of his pack for seemingly ages. The ‘pencils’ had been simple enough to figure out. In all honesty, he was surprised that Franklin hadn’t invented it far earlier. But this tube of plastic… Hamilton turned it over in his hands, clicking the small cap and watching the nib dip in and out. Carefully, he set it to the paper and flicked his wrist. A faint line appeared. Pressed a little harder. A darker line.

Hiding a giddy grin- because _oh_ he would be writing so much more now- Alexander got to work, filling in the adverbs. Another important discovery Alexander made was that the ink from the pen dried almost immediately.

By the time he was walking back up the dusty road, the chirping of crickets hung in the humid evening air. This school was a waste of time, no doubt about that. Even though he knew it to be years before they met once more, Hamilton couldn’t help the giddy grin at the thought of how his friends would be faring. And that grin was his undoing.

“Oi!”

Not moment later, a tin can connected with the back of his head. Hamilton’s smile slid from his face and he fixed his gaze on the ground immediately, knowing that the kids didn’t mean that much harm. Besides, they were kids. Hamilton had given Jefferson a bloody nose. He may be small but these were _kids_ , and he would hurt them.

“What’re you doin’?! You read _frequently_ what kinda line is that?!”

Okay, so bullying was something that would need to be fixed once he got the chance. He made a mental note to tell John about that. When the sandy-haired kid ran closer to him, likely to throw more verbal - and probably physical - rocks at him, Hamilton fled, not regretting it even as he heard the kids behind laughing. Panting, he burst through the dirty glass door, hurling himself the wood wall next to it. The male spent a few moments there, not moving and trying to force his lungs to work. Slowly, he calmed.

“You ‘kay, niño?” A red-faced shopkeeper crouched to meet his gaze. Dumbly, Alexander nodded and the man hummed in disbelief, glancing out the door. The kids, who were making faces at the small building, fled at the sight of the shopkeeper. Clearing his throat awkwardly, Alexander dusted off his trousers, noting with a sense of disdain that the bottom hems were too long.

“I am much better, thank you, sir. I merely felt it would be best to escape their antagonism before it escalated into something greater.”

The reincarnate glanced up to see the shopkeeper’s befuddled expression. “Who told you that?” the red-faced man asked.

“Nobody, to my memory. It’s merely my common sense, I suppose. Not the one by Thomas Paine, of course,” he hurried. The man shook his head in disbelief, chuckling to himself.

“Well, you seem bien informado!”

“Knowledge is power,” Alexander chuckled dryly. The shopkeeper raised an eyebrow.

“Power corrupts.”  
    Well, that was a new expression. Trying not to let any calculating expression show, Hamilton shrugged. “Then perhaps I am evil.”

A stunned laugh escaped the man. “You wanna help ‘round here, niño?”

Caught off guard, Alexander asked, “Excuse me?” the man raised an eyebrow. “Perhaps… you might rephrase that?”

“My shop,” said the man, motioning around him in a gesture just a vague as before. “We can do a underage agreement.”

“Excuse me?” Hamilton would really need to increase his vocabulary. The shopkeeper laughed.

“You do chores, keep books organized and all that, and I’ll pay you some money. ‘Course, I wouldn’t be paying you for work now then, would I,” he winked exaggeratedly, “I’d just be giving you a little gift every month.”

Hamilton considered for a few moments, then nodded, sticking out his hand to shake. “That would be great, sir.”

The shopkeeper shook the proffered hand with a smile.

Alexander Hamilton learned the hard way that not all shopkeepers were as kind as the Ben - the man who employed him. He had been walking down the strange cement walkway - sidewalk - when he had caught sight of the pub. It wasn’t too different from the ones in Hamilton’s times, but inside there was a… television didn’t he say? He had only stepped in, just to take a quick look, and had been promptly punted out by the barkeep.

Groaning, he rubbed the spot above his rear, where he had landed hard on the packed dust road. Making a mental note to avoid the sallow barkeep - actually, no. Hamilton’s mind was going to become a mess of figurative post-its at this point. Not that he would have minded; those post-its were _ingenious_!

With a sigh, he reached into his pocket, his fingers brushing the spiral plastic binding of the little notebook he had lifted from the canvas bag out back of the “dollar store”. It wasn’t in bad conscience that he had done so; nothing on the books he had nicked during his true childhood. And, after some minor pestering, Ben had conceded and lent Hamilton a couple of his textbooks. With a polite nod towards his “mother”, he entered his small room, flopped onto the bed in a way unbefitting of America’s first treasury secretary, and cracked open an early-edition almanac.

Chewing his lower lip in concentration, Alexander began to fill his notebook with thoughts. He laughed slightly, realizing that five pages had already been used. After a final bout of exhaustion, he decided, to so eloquently quote the phrase of one of the ‘middle-schoolers’, to ‘screw it’. He slept better than he had in literal years.

 

~

 

~

 

Seventeen. Well, technically sixty-four. But he was still too young to survive this. The whip of frothy waves, salt and brine pressing into every crack, every crevice. The dust, sweeping away trees, tearing away clapboard siding. And the sky; a vice of heaven, or perhaps hell. And the sky a true picture of terror, the terrific crack of thunder, clashing as if gods were battling, the rip of lightning across the inky, rolling clouds, illuminating the pounding raindrops in their abundance. Oh, the raindrops, hurling down upon him, descending like millions of tiny bullets, stinging the exposed skin of his collarbone, the screams and the wind slapping him, tossing him as if he were nothing more than a paper doll to be soaked by the storm and torn to pieces by the magnificent tumult. Hurricanes had been romanticized in the past, like wine from water, but now the man couldn’t understand how it could ever have been done. How could one take the crash of terror, the fear in the pit of one’s stomach, and twist it to awe? How could one see the achromatic darkness of the oppressing canvas of sky and turn it to wonder? It wasn’t awe, or wonder, or reverence; it was _dread_.

And now, he clung to the splintered post, glad only for the foresight to secure his notebooks in a Ziploc, and for the brief moment of pause the eye of hurricane granted him. The eye that fixated on Alexander, that saw him struggling beneath it, that burned hot in the steel clouds, its tendrils of yellow creeping to tear away the gray. Or perhaps to set it loose. Alexander bowed his head and clung to the post, his strength long gone, his numb grip powered only by the sheer will that coursed through him in chemical adrenaline. Above him, the wind beat on, never stopping for a moment.

Eventually, it passed, and then his arms dropped and he fell to the muck, the inside of his forearms scraped red, raw and grooved by the sodden wood. Tears blending with the salty water on his face, his teeth clacking together with unregistered cold and his head throbbing, he staggered to his feet. Upstreet, several men were staggering to their own, stumbling to embrace each other with sobs of relief. Numb, Hamilton approached them, dodging the attempts of comfort as he always did and collapsing onto an overturned crate. Phil- the barkeep- organized a search party, and he bent to ask Hamilton if he wished to join. The reincarnate stood, almost falling.

Wandering the street, his feet stomping sluggishly through the brine, Alexander upended each brick, each sign, each tree. And when he lifted the metal sheet of roofing, there was Ben; the shopkeeper’s neck angled in an unnatural position, his skin blue and purple with post-mortis bruising. For once, Alexander’s strength completely abandoned him and he sank to his knees, his raw forearms stinging at the contact to water and his sobs wringing anguish from his body.

With a hoarse yell, he flagged down the passing men and helped them tug Ben free from his confines of debris. If they noticed that the eyes of the normally stoic teen were red-rimmed, they chose not to comment. The rest of the day was a complete blur, and when he awoke, he hardly noticed that he had been seated upon a barrel since he had arrived back at the makeshift camp. Men in orange coats clamored about the scene, holding what Hamilton knew to be microphones to the mouths of whoever would speak. His heart in his throat, he unzipped the inside of his jacket, fumbling for a plastic-wrapped package and shaking the notebook out onto his hand.

Hamilton’s pen danced across the lined paper in sweet remembrance of the ratty quill which had done the same _so_ long ago, tracing the exact same loops and curves and corners. The corner of his lips twitching in malaise, he tore out the page and stood, folding it carefully and putting it in his pocket. Almost immediately, a reporter circled over to the reincarnate.

“Any words, kid?” he asked. Hamilton gaped for a short moment, the brisk tone catching him off guard after the murmurs of the refugees, then shrugged.

“It isn’t something to be spoken,” he said softly. As if he had remembered something, he widened his eyes and fumbled for his pocket, steadfastly ignoring the cameras and microphone. “Here,” he said, pressing the lined paper into the man’s palm. He waited patiently for the man to read it, and had to tamp down the internal flutter of anticipation as his eyebrows rose in surprise.

“This is,” he cleared his throat, “this is… you wrote this?”

Alexander nodded, suddenly red as he realized that not many wrote as he did anymore. The reporter shook his head- in disbelief, or shock, Alexander would never know- and cleared his throat again. “What’s your name, man?”

“Alexander Hamilton.”

Oh, it’d been awhile since he’d last said it, and the syllables rolling of his tongue were pleasing. Maybe Jefferson was right; he did like the sound of his own voice. The reporter just nodded, jotting it down in his notes, and waving Hamilton’s poem slightly in the air. “Would you mind if I put a copy of this in my paper? Credit of course, will be given to you,” assured the man. Alexander shrugged, then nodded.

“As you wish.”

With that he walked away, ignoring the stunned man, and escaping behind one of the wrecked homes before his big mouth got the better of him and he began to spew words again. To be fair, the last time it had happened, he had been fourteen. He didn’t think that the school teacher had recovered from his barrage rebuking their blatant sexism just yet. Perhaps that was one thing that he loved about this new world; much as rights still had to be fought for, the level of equality had truly increased. Even newer concepts, such as same-sex relationships - something that Hamilton hadn’t ever considered before - were being given attention, and it was honestly relieving. Then of course, there was the fact that his hand-crafted, effort-infused government was slowly becoming corrupt. He could most certainly appreciate God for thrusting him back into the world, even if the hurricane had torn his emotional state to pieces.

It wasn’t too long later that the refugee center received a call. Obliging the cool, mechanical voice of the woman speaking on behalf of the immigrant scholarship program, Hamilton packed his few belongings, boarding the first boat out of the Nevis and leaving the boat far too soon to board a airplane. Airplanes were terrifying and not something that Alexander would ever elaborate on, to anybody. Ever. Soon enough, he exited the boarding area with shaky knees and was free to flee the airport and greet his “caseworker” with the most subdued pace he could. Unfortunately, he could do nothing more than gape for a little while. Sure, the television shows he had so eagerly pursued showed New York City occasionally, but nothing could have prepared him for the craze that was his favorite city nearly two centuries after its beginning.

The place was a maze of pavement, housing hundreds of gray spires jutting to the sky, fluorescence streaming across enormous billboards. The streets were crowded, yellow taxicabs and brightly-colored cars swarming the ground while on the walkways - no, not walkways; on the _Hell_ ways, thousands and thousands of people swarmed the cement, some just giving up and walking on the street, much to the annoyance of the sea of vehicles. Hamilton quickly stepped back into the airport lobby.

“Hamilton?”

Behind him, a prim woman in round eyeglasses and a pencil skirt consulted her clipboard and glanced back towards Alexander expectantly. She looked the epitome of persnickety.

“Er… yeah, that’s me.”

With a sniff, she motioned him right back out the door. Weaving through the swarm of people, they made their way to the street. The woman called a cab by waving her hand high, a dollar bill snagged in between two fingers, and Hamilton discretely jotted down the method in his notebook. The woman climbed in first, and Alexander followed.

He didn’t pay much attention to the address, instead electing to pull his shoulder-length hair into a ponytail with a rubber band.

“We’ve matched you with a family for the summer,” the woman was saying, already moving into what was obviously a pre-prepared speech. “I’m Mrs. Lee -” Alexander had to stifle a snort of laughter that he desperately hoped she didn’t catch. Judging by the glare she sent him, she did, “- and I’ll be your caseworker. The LeAiems are a good match for you, according to our sources, and so I’ll trust you to them.”

Her tone was scolding in a way that made Alexander, a Founding Father, shrink into his seat slightly.

“Yes, Ma’am.”

“Good.”

They didn’t speak for the rest of the drive, and, an hour later, when the cab pulled to a stop outside a far-too-pristine house, Mrs. Lee walked Alexander to the door without a word. Humming slightly, Hamilton cast his gaze to the immaculate flower beds, blanking out the exchanged formalities and nodding farewell to his caseworker. Hamilton blankly parroted his name upon request, forcing a smile onto his face at the overenthusiastic beam of Mrs. LeAiemes and shuffling up the stairs obediently.

“This,” declared the sprightly woman, flinging a door open to reveal a room containing a desk, bed, and bookshelf, “will be your room!”

Hamilton smiled, thanking her graciously and gasping as he saw the rectangle of metal on the desk. A computer! She seemed to notice how his gaze was drawn to it at once.

“This will be your laptop,” Mrs. LeAiems told him, opening it. A picture of a no-doubt iconic bridge stretched across the screen, and two user symbols rested near a blue honda in the bottom left corner. Hamilton tried his best to hide the look of confusion that crossed his face at that.

“Your password,” Mrs. LeAiems said, “is ‘Hamilton16’. You can change it later but you’ll need to tell me the new one.”

“What?”

“I have to know your password,” the short-haired woman beamed, not seeming at all phased by the apparent lack of privacy that was to be. Hamilton nodded slightly, clamping his jaw shut so that complaints didn’t spew forth. Resting his fingers over the keyboard, he slowly typed in the password. Privately, he noted that he would need to improve his typing skills.

A small group of dots circled on the gray background, and then it revealed a picture of - Alexander winced. Apparently, the woman thought it was funny to set his homescreen to the pegboard of the gunshop. “Er… why?” he motioned vaguely towards the guns - not even caring to take a closer look at the more advanced models - and shot a glance at Mrs. LeAiems.

“All boys like guns!” she declared, her smile wide. Hamilton’s eyes narrowed. He may be relatively new to this world but… that was stereotyping!

“ _Not_ all boys like guns, and you shouldn’t believe such bigoted views. This isn’t the 1700’s! Your views on this are pre-medieval, and so, thereafter but not because, you can’t speak your views as if they are fact, and you should thank me for warning you of this so you don’t go spewing off in polite company! Third-”

Alexander closed his mouth with an audible click of teeth, his nostrils flaring and his eyes narrowed. It had not been a good idea to stamp down his arguments for so long; he might have well as exploded. Judging by the way that Mrs. LeAiems’s eyes had widened, she had meant her comment in innocent jest. “I’m sorry,” he bit out. “I just… I suppose I’m tired,” he forced a laugh and she nodded, beginning to look a little bit frustrated.

“If you are tired enough to snap at me like that,” Mrs. LeAiems declared, “you need to sleep _now_.”

With that, she closed the laptop, carrying it out of the room with a quiet huff. What the Hell!? Wasn’t the laptop his? Alexander stood there, confused for a few moments. Then, he hurried to the door to see her retreating back. “I’m sorry?”

He received no answer, and so he collapsed onto the desk chair with a weary sigh. On the bright side, the whole ‘let’s-reincarnate-you-into-a-younger-body’ debacle ensured that the sigh was fueled by purely mental exhaustion, not physical.

His notebook was out before he knew it, and the metal nib of his pen dancing across the page in observations and tasks. With a sigh, he flipped to the last page to complete his sentence, filling the rest of the blue-lined space with nearly meaningless reminders, and things that he already knew. He fumbled through his bag, retrieving his final notebook and double-checking that no pages would dog-ear before closing his newly-completed one. He’d need to get a job if he wanted to buy any more.

Groaning and cursing ‘jet-lag’, Hamilton burrowed underneath the thick covers of the bed, not even bothering to change out of his jeans. When the press of denim became too much, he shucked them, exchanging them for cotton pants and laying back down. Even so, he couldn’t fall asleep. The bed was too soft beneath his back, curving to swallow him, and the blanket was too heavy on his chest, pressing down on him like was he had been buried. Hamilton rose from the bed, leaving its warmth and laying down on the shoddily carpeted floor. It was too soft and too thick for him to recline in good conscious, but with the sheet around his shoulders and the occasional draft chilling him, it was much better. Finally, the dull gray walls faded and he fell asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick note: I do not have any experience with foster-care organizations. The family, the caseworker, everybody else involved are fictional, and are not based, in any way, off of people involved with an organization. I'm giving Hamilton a bad foster-care experience because it furthers the plot, that's all.


	3. Issues are Omnipresent

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N:  
>  ***blows dust off this fic***  
>  ***coughs***  
>  Remember! This fic will update whenever I can manage it!  
> Anyways, I decided not to impose on the wondrous Kenzie_Perth’s time any longer, and that I would revise this chapter myself. Please enjoy suffering through my tense-switching!  (It’s not too bad, it’s just that society has conditioned me to express it as thus)

Hamilton awoke to a stiff neck and goosebumps, but he couldn’t have felt better. A spared glance towards the window revealed the sun creeping over the skyline, casting shades of color over the lush, green lawns and heating the morning mist to nonexistence. His eyes bleary, Hamilton stumbled to his bag, shrugging on his single sweater, the knitted cloth scratchy on his sleep-sensitive skin. His hand came up to cover his mouth as an afterthought as he yawned widely. After some brief shuffling through his belongings, he extracted his final blank notebook, slipping it into the pocket of his pants. Still blinking sleep from his eyes, he left the bedroom and trudged down the thinly carpeted stairs. 

He realized far too late that he hadn’t taken the liberty to tour the house the night before. Luckily, it wasn’t hard to navigate, as the ground had only a kitchen, dining room and living room; the only hallway of doors was the one upstairs.

On the kitchen counter, the laptop from last night rested, the silver top gleaming in the early morning light. Alexander sighed and snatched a banana from the fruit bowl, hoping that the LeAiems family wouldn’t notice. Opening random cupboards until he found what he sought, Alexander filled a glass of water at the faucet, chugging it and suppressing the bout of hiccups that came from such abrupt consumption. 

Still chewing his banana, Alexander balanced his laptop on his unoccupied forearm and set on the dining room table as soon as he dared. He sat down and opened the laptop, the same screensaver as before lighting the background. He typed in the password with a hum, reflecting that at least it was simple to remember, and nearly banged his head on the table upon seeing the home screen. A groan of frustration escaped him, nonetheless.

Apparently, Mrs. LeAiems worked in extremes; a cartoon kitten graced the homepage. He opened the web browser, slowly typing the names of his friends - Jefferson and Madison too. He grinned when, as result of searching his own name in curiosity, at least twenty photos of him popped up. True to God’s words, most of them were of the ten dollar bill.

Eventually, the neighborhood began to wake up around him. Next door, a mower shuddered to a start, the whirring of the simple machinery mixing with a barking dog and not long after, the delighted cheers of young children. Hamilton could hear a faucet turn on upstairs, the flow of water stuttered by splashing. The water turned off, and Mrs. LeAiems jogged down the stairs. The instant her eyes landed on the page of notes Alexander was transcribing into Word - slowly, thanks to his lacking typing skills - she frowned.

“Don’t you think you’ve been on there long enough?” she laughed, closing the laptop before Alexander could reply. “You’ve probably been up before dawn! This,” she shook her finger uncomfortably close to his face as she reprimanded him, “is why you need to be careful about when you go to sleep.”

Hamilton nodded politely. “Yes, ma’am.”

She flashed him a smile and laughed lightly. “No need for that, Alexander! Call me Deborah, or Mum!”

Shifting in his seat and casting his gaze down towards the ugly carpet, he replied, “Yes, Deborah.” If Mrs. LeAiems noticed that he had used the more formal name of the ones she had offered, the woman didn’t comment. “Outside, c’mon!” she shooed him towards the door and he hardly had the time to slip on his worn tennis shoes before he was practically shoved onto the front porch. He shivered at once.

While Hamilton was used to cold weather- his time spent at Fort Knox had ensured that- as a native of the Nevis islands, he simply couldn’t adjust to the cooler, New York weather. It may be summer, but the sun had barely started it’s ascension, and so Hamilton drew his thin sweater tighter around himself, bouncing on the balls of his feet as he tried to warm up. Hardly had he begun to do so, than had the door opened again, revealing Mrs. LeAiems in a pair of tan capris and a T-shirt. On top of her short hair, a sun hat perched precariously. She was positively  _ beaming _ .

“Good day, huh?” she said excitedly. Mute, Hamilton nodded, cursing his carribean blood silently and trying not to let his violent shivering become visible. Mrs. LeAiems didn’t take any notice of his chattering teeth and sauntered over to a the flower beds that Alexander had so admired the day before. Well, not admired as much as fixed his gaze on in attempt to fail any pursuit of eye-contact.

Suppressing a sigh, he fumbled through his pockets, extracting his notebook after the hinderance of numb fingers went away. He set his pen to the page and began to compose an argument on the benefits of mutual expectations and execution of privacy, stopping only when a gloved,  _ filthy _ thumb pressed over the binding of the books. It smudged potting dirt everywhere that contacted it. He stiffened, but did his best to concede without a fight, allowing Mrs. LeAiems to pluck the book out of his hands without any protest.

“What’s this?” she laughed, paging through his notes and raising an eyebrow at some bullet-pointed argument. “Due to the assuagement of emotion promoted by unworkable and quixotic stories featuring a dispassionate main character and a fervent supporting character, nearly all apologues are lost in systems featuring only what society demands. This is a behavior perpetrated by industries including but not limited to, film, music, literature- why are you writing this?!”

Hamilton shrugged, his cheeks burning and his fingers itching to snatch his notebook back from the woman. He was sure that at least one page had already been irrevocably dirt-smeared. She laughed and waved in the air teasingly, and he finally snagged it, holding it delicately by the back cover as he meticulously swept dirt from the lined pages. Luckily, Mrs. LeAiems seemed to take no offense, merely laughing and shaking her head disbelievingly.

“You write too much,” she told him. Hamilton shook his head vigorously, his mouth already opening to launch into the rant he had so-long-ago composed. She caught him on the first two sentences, however, silencing him with multiple, ‘Alexander!’s spoken at increasing volume. His mouth snapped shut and his ears, face, and neck flushed a deep red. Well, he wouldn’t need to fear facial frostbite, anymore.

“Sorry,” he murmured, dipping his head and lifting the pen to the page once more. Despite his attempt at distracting himself, he still heard Burr (‘ _ talk less’ _ ) in his head. His reverie was broken by Mrs. LeAiems’s loud laugh (which was slowly grating his nerves to shreds), and the woman took back his notebook, stowing it in her pocket.

“You’ve written enough for the day,” she declared, leaving Alexander on the verge of yelling, his pen still held awkwardly between two fingers. Still, he couldn’t hold back the wince as she kneeled in the flowerbed, the soil dangerously close to his pocket.

“Er…” Hamilton almost trailed off completely, but he steeled himself soon enough, “could I at least put it in my bag then?” Mrs. LeAiems glanced back, an eyebrow raised, and he hurried to settle any mistrust. “I swear, I’ll just put it there, I won’t touch it after. You see, I simply don’t want it spoiled, and,” he motioned helplessly at the soil she knelt in. Her eyes narrowed and he knew immediately that he hadn’t made a good decision.

“Are you saying that you don’t trust me with keeping a simple pad of paper clean?” she asked, her question audibly loaded. Hamilton shook his head frantically, trying to soothe her. 

“Not in the least! I just, I’m kinda paranoid about it and-”

“It’ll be safe,” she assured him, her voice soft but the steel edge to it sharper than a razor. “Consider this a chance for you to relax.” Hamilton nodded, wilting in place, the chilliness of the morning air forgotten for a few moments. He had to physically repress yelling ‘ _ that’s not how I relax! _ ’ 

A draft breezed across the lawn and two kids exited the door of a house a few mailboxes down. Alexander hardly spared them a glance, his fingers itching for the notebook already. Instead, he sighed, dropping his pen in his cotton pants and sliding the clip over the pocket. After a few more moments, he left, wandering aimlessly to investigate the backyard. 

The backyard was about as barren as the front, an old playset and a small tree being the only things to to grace the dry grass. Still, he sat on one of the swings, avoiding the cracked plastic coverings on the rusty chains and using his feet to sway the seat slightly. An ominous creaking sound came from the supporting beam but he ignored it, knowing that the playset could manage under his weight well enough.

Slowly, the sun crept into the sky, hardly noticed by Hamilton, whose gaze was fixed upon scraggly patch of grass. The early morning mist evaporated and the dew drops on the sparse blades of grass followed. Soon, Alexander’s sweater began itching at his neck and arms as the sun beat down on it, and he yanked it off, wrapping it around his waist and rubbing the goosebumps on his forearms. 

Around him, the neighborhood came alive, the shouts of the children at the playground a street down filling the air, the delighted shrieks and yells lilting with the raucous tweeting of sparrows and robins. The front door opened and shut again with a muted slam. Not long after, Mrs. LeAiems opened the screen door and poked her head out of it. Her face was red - no doubt from the direct sunlight beating down on the lawn - and she was grinning. A streak of dirt was smudged across the woman’s nose. Mrs. LeAiems’s broad grin vanished upon seeing him, and she frowned slightly.

“You haven’t been sitting there the whole time, have you?” she asked. Mute, Hamilton shook his head, jumping to his feet. She hummed in what was likely disbelief, but didn’t comment. “Do you want to do something?”   
“Write?” offered Hamilton. She laughed and rolled her eyes.

“I mean something  _ real! _ ”

“Writing is real,” Alexander tried to maintain. “It’s a supporting pillar-”

“Alexander!”

Hamilton flushed, and he tossed his sweater over his shoulder, looking down to hide his burning cheeks. “Sorry.”

Mrs. LeAiems snapped her fingers, her face lighting up. “Let’s play soccer!”

Hamilton offered a half-baked argument about how he was trying to finish a poem and fled to the cool, air-conditioned house to throw his sweater back on.

“Alexander! You need to get some exercise!”

He winced and peeled his sweater back off, tossing it onto the back of a dining room chair with a few baleful mutters. “Yeah, okay!” he called back, half hoping that she wouldn’t hear. Unfortunately, she did and she came tromping over the clean, linoleum kitchen tiles with a soccer ball she had gotten God-knows-where clutched in her hands.

Trying his best to ignore her annoying chatter, he lagged a couple steps behind her as they walked, already regretting his decision to leave behind his sweater. Eventually, they arrived at a field of dry grass, only for her to begin laughing about something that one of Mr. LeAiems’s work buddies had said oh-so long ago. He did his best to smile politely through her terrible regaling of it.

“This’ll do, don’t you think?” she asked, surveying the blank field on all sides. Without waiting for Alexander’s quiet consent, she dropped the ball and rolled her foot over it a couple times, revealing that it was actually quite flat. She seemed not to care and she passed it to Hamilton without a word of warning. A hiss escaped him and he hopped to trap it, passing it gently back in the way he had seen the boys in Nevis do it. It didn’t take upwards of five passes for him to figure it out, and soon he was slouching in place, kicking it back with boring regularity and ignoring her cheers of ‘good job!’

It didn’t take long before he had mentally composed a tri-point argument on how the uniformity made for unhealthy muscle-memory and how it eventually became completely pointless, punctuality and steadiness turning aimless and absurd. He huffed a sigh and glanced up; Mrs. LeAiems didn’t seem like she would be stopping, anytime soon. Another couple of purposeless passes later, and he had conceived an intricate plot; one with no margin for error and one which would surely influence the world for years to come. His complex covin could be summarised in two words; false injury.

Checking that Mrs. LeAiems was still chattering frantically, he stepped backwards and promptly fell over, allowing his leg to buckle beneath him. The entirely-too-loud “Ouch!” that he forced seemed to be unnecessary, for Mrs. LeAiems was hovering uncomfortably close to his side within seconds.

“Are you okay?!”

He pretended to grimace, and shook his head. “I think I twisted my ankle a little.” The woman prodded at it and Hamilton faked a wince. She examined it for a few suspenseful seconds, then stood up, hands on her hips. 

“You’d better rest it!” she declared. With false resentment, Hamilton nodded, getting to his feet and limping back towards the LeAiems house.

As it turned out, faking an injury was the best idea Hamilton had ever had, bar the financial system. Mrs. LeAiems had bustled him to the couch at once, relinquishing his computer for the span of his “recovery” and leaving him to peacefully transcribe his notebooks into word documents. With a small grin, he created an email address (and if the ‘adotham@gmail.com’ was in inside joke, well, no one had to know).

Hamilton stayed on the couch for the rest of the day, and the sun began to ascend without his notice. It was when the sky began to color in oranges and pinks that his attention was cast back to reality and away from the screen of his computer.

The door opened and a tall man clambered through the door, already calling towards the kitchen, where Mrs. LeAiems was preparing dinner. Almost at once, the cheerful woman Alexander had grown to dislike popped up, her smile wide. Mr. LeAiemes - for it was undoubtedly he - crossed the room in a few strides, kissing his wife with a loud smacking noise and making Hamilton cringe at the sheer domesticity of it all. Almost at one, the man caught sight of Alexander on the couch, releasing a loud laugh which sounded uncomfortably noisy in the small living room. 

“So is this the Alexander you were telling me about?” he asked, the apples of his cheeks rosy and his grin wide. Alexander swung his feet to the floor, faking a wince as if he had jarred a real injury and nodded holding out his hand.

“That is I. Hello… Mr. LeAiems, I presume!”

The man laughed again, the sound almost - if possible - louder than the first time. Then, instead of accepting Hamilton’s hand, he stooped to practically lift Alexander off the couch in a hug. A strangled squeak escaped him, and he froze, the pressure on his ribs suffocating in reminiscence to being cast underneath the pounding of waves. He patted the man on the back awkwardly, trying to reign in the panicked beating of his heart and force the air from his lungs, trying to breathe but utterly forgetting how. When Mr. LeAiems released him, he fell back onto the couch practically wheezing; whomever had said the firmness in a handshake or greeting was a good thing, had clearly never had such greeting forced upon themself. Mrs. LeAiems - bless her - seemed to notice, and she hurried forwards tutting. 

“Did you hurt your ankle again, Alexander?” she asked, looking it over while Alexander did his best to regain his composure. 

“I just… jolted it a little, I guess,” he lied. She hummed in disapproval while Mr. LeAiems began to look sheepish.

“I’m sorry, Alexander. It’s just very nice to meet you.”

Suppressing the urge to roll his eyes, Hamilton parroted the sentiment. The man grinned and left the room - presumably to assume the task of finishing dinner - and Mrs. LeAiems sat beside Alexander on the couch. As she began to chatter mindlessly, Alexander grimaced slightly; no wonder Burr had been so pissed off at his constant mouthiness. He forced a smile, nonetheless, and nodded stiffly.  _ Please, God, let my suffering end now, _ he thought. As if on cue, Mr. LeAiems called to his wife from the kitchen, and the woman next to Hamilton left in a hurry. A small sigh of relief escaped him and he pulled his laptop back into his lap. He should probably feel more guilty for disliking this family so; they  _ were _ trying.

Slowly, as he copied the same passage for the fifth time (a vain attempt at improving his typing skills), he allowed his mind to wander to his reaction to the embrace. He had never been like that in his first life.  _ Never _ . Even after he had endured the hurricane the first time around, he had been perfectly fine when the men in the pub had clasped his shoulders and thumped him on the back in congratulations. Even after the tumultuous battles, he and Lafayette and Washington had embraced each other in friendly greeting. Hell, Washington had been so much taller and broader than Mr. LeAiems was, and Hamilton had never freaked out. He opened the web browser, positioning his fingers and-

“Alexander!” He jerked, hastily backspacing the list of symptoms he had typed. In retrospective, he had probably typed too many anyways. “Dinnertime!”

After a few seconds of confusion, Hamilton surmised that he was meant to join them, and he set his laptop aside. The reincarnate sat through the prayer (which was apparently mandatory and nightly) but didn’t share any more than necessary, despite the disapproving frown Mr. LeAiems sent him. The man’s wife sent him a quelling glare, as if she felt Alexander would break should too harsh a glare be directed at him. Hamilton felt a little more guilt fill the figurative glass containing his emotions. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter: In which a founding father has a mental breakdown.


	4. I Can't Breathe

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm going to pretend that I didn't get misty-eyed while revising this.
> 
> **TRIGGER WARNINGS:**
> 
>   * panic attack
>   * emotional abuse
> 


His fork ended up doing nothing more to the lasagna than poking it a few times but if the LeAiems’s noticed, they didn’t say anything. The dining room was absolutely silent, sans the gentle clinking of silverware on dishes. Eventually, when the quiet became overwhelming, Alexander cleared his throat quietly.

“May I be excused?” he requested. Without sparing him a glance, Mr. LeAiems shook his head, even as his wife nodded her assent. A pause, and then they both repeated the motions a little more forcefully, as if in a silent argument. Mrs. LeAiems sighed, lowering her fork and dabbing the corner of her mouth with a napkin; her husband mirrored the movement.

“Alexander needs to adjust,” Mr. LeAiems said. “It’ll be good for him to get used to spending time with us.”

Mrs. LeAiems sighed again, then nodded, ignoring Hamilton’s frown. They were aware that they were currently sharing a meal with him, and that he wasn’t deaf, right?

“Yes, dear,” she said, turning back to him and beaming. “Maybe just a little longer?”

“But… I’m full,” Alexander said, raising his eyebrows and trying to look more earnest. Mrs. LeAiems just hummed.

“I know, but it might be best if you stayed just a little longer? You still have to get used to everything after all, right?”

Hamilton bit back a heated response. _Right!?_ These weren’t requests, these were deceitful orders! Instead, he nodded, forcing a smile and ignoring the fact that it probably looked more like a grimace. The room suffocated in silence for a little longer, Alexander poking at his food moodily. Nobody spoke and the clinking of the LeAiems’ silverware continued from the other side of the table. At long last, Hamilton stood- ignoring Mr. LeAiems’s protest- and stepping into the living room to fetch his laptop.

The screen positioned so that none but he could see it, Alexander resumed the task of transcribing symptoms. Mr. LeAiems cleared his throat and Hamilton pretended that he couldn’t hear it over the tapping of the computer keys. He cleared it again and Alexander glanced up, eyebrow raised; he had to be civil, yes, but not necessarily polite. When Mr. LeAiems did nothing more than mirror Alexander’s eyebrow movement, the reincarnate resumed his task, his hands flying over the keys faster than ever. Also, a little more incorrectly than ever, but accuracy would come with practice, he supposed.

Mrs. LeAiems cleared her throat much like her husband had, and Hamilton glanced up, annoyed. She repeated the eyebrow movement and Alexander frowned. Couldn’t she be a little more verbal about her complaints?

“Yes?” he finally prompted, when it became clear that she wouldn’t be actively pursuing conversation on her own. She cleared her throat _again_ , and inclined her head towards her husband, whose eyebrow was still raised in a manner seeming disbelieving. “ _Yes?_ ” Hamilton said, a bit more sharply. Mr. LeAiems sighed. _Were these people communicating in some non-verbal method completely unknown to him?_

When, at last, Mr. LeAiems spoke, he remained vague. “Perhaps you might enjoy dinner?” he suggested.

Hamilton hummed slightly, his eyes darting across the webpage before he clicked the ‘X’ abruptly; this ‘WebMD’ certainly wasn’t going to help him out. “I did,” he said. “It _was_ very nice- I thank you for it.”

After a pregnant pause, Mr. LeAiems surged to his feet in a movement so abrupt that it caught Alexander entirely off guard. The man slammed the laptop shut, and Hamilton yanked his fingers back, narrowly avoiding the chrome cover. “Hey!” he protested, even as the tall man slid it underneath his chair. A disapproving glare from Mr. LeAiems silenced him.

“Dear, that wasn’t-” Mr. LeAiems silenced his wife with a glare of the same likeness he had directed towards Alexander, and her mouth snapped shut. Somehow, a resignated sigh escaping her despite the closed mouth.

“Listen here, Alexander,” Mr. LeAiems said, jabbing his index finger at the disgruntled male. “I’m going to get this to work, and I don’t care if you are going to be as stubborn as you are-” Hamilton physically restrained from correcting the absolutely _abhorrent_ phrasing, “-but we are going be a family unit. We will solve _problems_ as a family unit. We will _talk_ as a family unit. If you can’t accept that, then you have another thing coming to you, young man!”

His teeth having been grinding together for the entirety of the other man’s rant, Hamilton finally stood, pushing his chair away from the table and almost falling in the process.

“Even if such a thing was the cultural and expected formality- which it is not- you cannot expect me to accept such preposterous and circumstantial behavior! Perhaps you haven’t been briefed properly, but this program is not intending for me to gain a family; it’s intending for you to gain the training necessary to foster younger children- and God, you need it- and it’s intending to present me with boarding until university starts! A person cannot simply change their ideals, family, or way of thinking, despite whatever psychological facts you believe, and as thus, I cannot view you as my family by any meaning of choice. As of now, even if I should have the ability to change such inalienable rationalities, I would choose not to in light of your recent behavior. I could digress in multiple directions, all in direct relation to you as a ‘family unit’, but I will instead choose to address key points.

“First of all, you should know quite well by now that I am, how you say-” Hamilton barely realized that he had adopted Lafayette’s habit, in light of this world’s more neoteric vocabulary, “an introvert. Should you tell me that you are oblivious to the definition of this term, I would reply that it means, in all but words, that I didn’t like _any_ of the activities that you tried to force upon me today. It might be unfair, to your way of thinking, to judge so quickly. However, in my lifetime, I have noted that it is much easier to judge the people by the impression that they choose to make, rather than their actual personality which can only be discovered through time or traumatic events.

“Furthermore, it is not only convenient, but also more effective to judge people by their chosen masquerade. Mrs. LeAiems tried to show how cheerful, social, and active she was, implying that she thought that such a personality would be preferable above all others. I am only social to a short extent, not to preferability, and I would rather transcribe a badly-written essay than play ‘soccer’. I am a bit hotheaded at times, and am rarely cheerful without good reason, or at least, since my early teens,” Hamilton almost added ‘during my first time around’, but he refrained.

“If Mrs. LeAiems had even attempted to respect the way I was, instead of plucking my notebook from my hands and telling me that in no uncertain terms would I be writing anytime soon, I would be more than willing to judge her more thoroughly. However, she did not, and because of that, I will not. Mr. LeAiems on the other hand hasn’t had the proper chance to make an impression. Of course, if I were to judge him from what I have seen thus far, I would say that he is rather explosive, and that he chooses to conform others to his skewed ideals. He has little consideration, and seems to have a slight egotistical disorder, judging by how he felt that he knew best for me, not even bothering to back up his unspoken claim with fact.

“Even I can recognize that living in such an environment might be good for me- if said environment didn’t match my stubbornness word for word and if said environment wasn’t so deluded into think that I don’t have an ounce of knowledge. Furthermore, patronizing me as you both have is _not_ a way to make an impression with anybody, let alone myself. On the subject of patronization, I digress slightly to address the issue of privacy.

“It is expected, in nearly all familial and friendly bonds, a certain amount of respect in expected via the granting of privacy. Not only have you demanded the password to a device which you _told_ me you gifted me, only to my shock and displeasure when I found out it would be used a means of control, but you have also taken some of my only possessions, flipping through the pages of my notebook without caring for my rights. Furthermore-”

“ALEXANDER!”

Hamilton’s eyes narrowed, but he stopped talking, silently challenging the LeAiems’ to refute any of his points. Instead of doing anything of the like, Mr. LeAiems motioned towards the stairs, practically shaking with fury. “Go,” he began, restraint obvious in his voice, “to your room.”

Hamilton didn’t move. _Who did this man think he was?!_

“NOW!!!”

Hamilton crossed his arms and stood steadfast, feeling a twitch from the small motor tic that hadn’t made itself known for years. His upper-lip curled slightly in a sneer. “Your options do not allow for such orders, nor can you force me to follow them by any legal means. I am to consider your offer, and I have; now you have only to consider mine.”

As if an internal switch was flipped, Mr. LeAiems was suddenly calm. _Very_ calm. _Dangerously_ calm. He stepped closer, and Hamilton couldn’t help but to shrink back slightly, feeling all too much as if he was back in the Nevis, the wind beating towards him, shoving him backwards, the oppression of dread creeping back into his limbs. And then, he saw how his hand was reaching for Alexander’s shoulder and he shrank back.

Maybe it hadn’t been the correct thing to do, but at the time, Hamilton had needed closure. It had taken weeks, but Alexander had managed to track down one of the freed slaves who had been in John’s battalion. He had exchanged drinks for the man’s recounting of his friend’s final battle. In retrospect, Hamilton probably should have recognised the fact that knowing the play-by-play of John’s death wouldn’t have helped him any. And now, it wasn’t serving him in the least. For now he knew of how the redcoat had reached for Laurens’s shoulder, holding him in the saddle so that the bullet might pierce his torso and ultimately kill him. He knew of that Mr. LeAiems was reaching for his own, perhaps to snatch back the life had fought most dearly for.

A choked shout escaped Hamilton and he stumbled backwards, nearly tripping over his chair and only just managing to catch himself before he fell. He saw Mr. LeAiems’s eyes narrow, and the step that he took as if to place him beside Hamilton, to take from him what those soldiers had intended to so long ago. Alexander whirled around and ran up the stairs, each breath weighing in his throat, not being able to shake the feeling that his lungs were slowly shrinking and he wouldn’t be able to force another inhale. He vaguely heard the outraged shouts behind him and _oh, God, were they chasing him!?_

The steps pounded on the stairs behind him in tandem to how his own had done, and the thumping echoed through his mind and he _couldn’t breathe._ In his haze, he felt as if his lungs were thin, that the walls clung together, that to risk another inhale would be to tear apart the organ and then he inhaled only to find that the thin walls had turned to stone. Another cough rose, and he choked slightly, fumbling for his door handle and ignoring how the edges of his vision were slowly but surely turning dark. At last, the handle gave way and he tripped forwards, only stopping long enough to shut his door. He might have slammed it, but for how his arms were trembling.

He fell into a corner, not even making it to his bed before his legs collapsed from underneath him, pitching him to the floor with a shuddering groan. The floor was shockingly cold against his cheek. Hamilton’s eyes slid closed, and he tried desperately to inhale; the wooden floorboards against his face began to feel colder and colder, seeming ice against his flushed skin. But the thin walls of his lungs seemed to suction together with every inhale, and even with his fluctuating muscles, he couldn’t separate them. He felt more than heard the pounding of his blood circulation become louder, thrumming in his ears until he couldn’t even hear the steps nearing his door. His head spun. With a burst of effort, he hauled himself into what might qualify as a sitting position, focusing only on the movement and pressing his back against the wall behind him.

He was alone now.

The press in his throat seemed to diminish, and he sucked a trembling breath of air into his lungs. He held it in for far too long, afraid that if he let it back out, he wouldn’t be able to draw another. Eventually, Hamilton did release it, taking another inhale greedily. His hearing came back, and he felt the rushing of his blood slowly subside. His face was hot, he noted somewhere in the back of his mind.

The door slammed open not a second after Hamilton had exhaled for the second time, and at the sight of a no-doubt furious Mr. LeAiems, he felt his throat seize up again, prompting another breathless coughing fit. The man was encroaching; he wasn’t supposed to be here. Even as his eyes streamed and his throat clamped and his muscles seized and his temple began to throb again, the man moved closer, his steps pounding.  Alexander weakly raised a hand, trying to ignore its visible shaking, and attempted to ward off the man. His hand was grabbed and shoved away, and a cry of protest fell from Hamilton’s lips as he withdrew his knees in attempt to shield his chest. The angry yells of Mr. LeAiems reached his hazy mind.

“Start breathing and speak up, goddammit!”

Alexander sobbed again, the cry wracking his throat even as the brief pause allowed for a slight inhalation.

“I… can’t!” he managed to force, before succumbing to another breathless coughing fit. Mr. LeAiems shook him, trying to get the male to talk, but Alexander could do nothing more than repeat his previous words as if they were a mantra, the words spilling from his lips without his consent. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t die again. He couldn’t tolerate his life being stolen. He couldn’t breathe.

Hamilton heard Mr. LeAiems swear again, and vaguely recognized that he was being hauled to his feet, thrown onto the mess of bedsheets on his mattress.

"If you don't stop crying, I'll give you something to cry about," Mr. LeAiems hissed, glaring at Alexander with a fierce ire. Alexander stared at him with glassy eyes, his throat and tear ducts working involuntarily still. Mr. LeAiems's lip curled in apparent anger. The taller man stalked over to his small desk, seating himself in the crappy office chair and making it clear to the best that he could nonverbally that he wasn’t going to leave. Gradually, Hamilton calmed, only for each bout of success to be refuted by another oxygen-deprived fit as he remembered that Mr. LeAiems was here in his space and as he recalled how his hand had reached for Alexander’s shoulder. Eventually, his breathing was reduced to shaking inhalations.

“Are you done?” Mr. LeAiems finally asked, his expression conveying well enough that he wasn’t impressed with Alexander’s fit. The incarnate tried to silence his shaky breaths and he bowed his head, all while subconsciously drawing his knees closer to his chest. Mr. LeAiems moved to get a little closer and Hamilton felt himself tense. When the weight of the other man deposited on his mattress, it was all he could do to regulate his breathing, let alone to concentrate on what Mr. LeAiems was saying.

“Alexander!” hissed the man angrily. Hamilton started and nodded, the ‘yessir’ from his time as a scholar falling from his lips just as it had a lifetime ago. Mr. LeAiems frowned in disapproval.

“Don’t call me that,” he demanded. “I’m supposed to help you out, whether you like it or not. Being all formal isn’t going to help. Call me Bill.” When Alexander visibly froze, Mr. LeAiems continued. “No, don’t. If we are going to behave like a family unit-” _We aren’t going to behave like a family unit!_ Alexander wanted to scream, “-you need to call me father.”

Alexander didn’t answer. No. His father was Washington, in all ways but in the eyes of the law. He remained silent, keeping his glare of pure hatred engaged in the direction of his knees.

“Answer me, son!” the man finally shouted, his debatably placid temperament changing at once. Hamilton didn’t even cringe, didn’t even hesitate.

“DON’T CALL ME SON!” He shouted, his voice raw from his sobbing, but his voice incensed. When he had refuted Washington, he had done so on the grounds that he didn’t deserve the general’s kindness, that he would be nothing more than a detriment to Washington’s status. He had done so because he didn’t feel at ease accepting the kindness directed towards him with any sort of good conscience. He had shouted that at Washington with an entirely different meaning, and though his sense for doing so was different now, Hamilton couldn’t shake the sense that Mr. LeAiems was stealing something, tainting a memory.

Now, the imbecile was seemed taken aback by his outburst. The shock on his face vanished almost at once, though, and rage filled its absence. “Alexander Hamilton, listen here! You do not raise your voice at me, understand!?” It didn’t even take a second to weigh the dangers; Hamilton shrank back against the wall, trying to regulate his breathing before it could get out of hand. His shoulder was shaken again and he automatically recoiled from the force. When Mr. LeAiems advanced again to repeat the motion, Hamilton did his best to mentally distance himself from the act, only concentrating enough to ensure that his head wasn’t jolted too badly. _God, please don’t kill me._

Even if Burr refuted it as a general rule, Hamilton _did_ know when his life was in danger, and when talking or arguing or insisting would leave for nothing for detriment. It took him a moment to realize that he wasn’t being shaken anymore. Glancing up through blurred vision and stinging eyes, he saw that Mrs. LeAiems was beside her husband, one hand on his arm, soothing the man. After a few moments of speech that Hamilton couldn’t hear over the pounding in his ears, Mr. LeAiems stood up and left the room. With a pitying glance ( _why did she pity him, what was she going to do!?)_ Mrs. LeAiems stepped closer.

“Alexander…” her voice trailed off and she laid a hand on his flushed cheek. It took absolutely all of Hamilton’s effort not to cringe or slap it away. She must have seen what he had wanted to do, for she sighed and retreated. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

The bedroom door shut. Aside from Alexander’s shaky breath, the room was silent.

Eventually, he became accustomed to the silence, and the ticking of a previously unnoticed wall-mounted clock seemed to grow louder in the quietude. He uncurled and sprawled across the bed, painfully aware of how physically vulnerable he was at the moment. Gradually, the bed grew warm beneath him and he realized that his shirt was stuck to his skin with sweat. Alexander groaned and stripped off both the blanket and his shirt, laying the clothing over the back of his chair and falling back onto the bed. It was still uncomfortably warm. He laid a hand against his bare stomach, feeling the flushed skin for a moment.

Hamilton finally stripped the bed of its sheets, laying them over the shaggy carpet and attempting sleep once more. He managed, and he noted as his pattern of thought grew hazy that the room seemed to literally fade around him. God, he was tired. So fucking tired.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry.  
> Remember the foster care disclaimer from the previous chapter, please!  
> Know that I have never had a panic attack for the reasons that Alexander did, and therefore, it is highly likely that this anxiety/PTSD mixture was written inaccurately.


	5. Almost There

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alexander leaves the LeAiemses and greets one of his friends at long last.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OKAY WAIT THIS IS LIKE A MONTH LATE BUT I HAVE EXCUSES PLS  
> Excuses:
> 
>   * I partook in a fandom event that ended up with me writing a one-shot every day for a week
>   * I struggled through a tough spot in my math
>   * I created an attachable phone float for my STEM program
>   * I read the entire Microsoft Certification textbook for PowerPoint
>   * I wrote an (arguably) unwarranted five page long essay about why I am Hamilton Incarnate
>   * I wrote somebody a fic for their birthday
>   * I wrote more for my friend's fic
>   * I started learning French
>   * I dealt with a really crappy bout of depression
>   * I converted three people into complete musical nerds so now I have somebody to sing RENT, Hamilton, and ITH with
>   * I stayed on top of my rigorous homework schedule in general
>   * I didn't have wifi for about a week
>   * I had writer's block and couldn't figure out how to introduce the university aspect of this story
>   * I wrote thirteen pages of Jamilton smut for a friend of mine. Fun times.
> (also I have no plot pls help)


Hamilton awoke to harsh sunlight, the beams streaming in shapeless through his eyelashes. He groaned and threw his forearm over his eyes in a vain attempt at shielding them. His head pounded. Slowly, the sleepy fog in Alexander’s mind lifted and he propped himself up on one elbow with a small sigh. He had woken up in time to catch the brilliant rays of the early morning sun and the pale pink sky. Judging from yesterday, it would be a good few hours before the LeAimeses got up. Though he wanted nothing more than to stay in bed for another hour, Alexander didn’t want to tempt fate any more than was necessary, so he slid out of bed and pulled on his leggings and sweater. It was with a sense of apprehension that he noted that the shirt-sleeve cuffs of his dark green sweater were growing ratty, and that a small hole was forming in his leggings by his calf.

Alexander slung the strap of his bad over his shoulder, resolving to visit the store with the meager amount of money he had saved up from working at Ben’s shop as soon as possible. He cast a single glance around the near-barren bedroom, double-checking that he hadn't forgotten anything. He didn’t trust the LeAimeses not to rifle through his belongings when he was absent.

Downstairs was eerily quiet, probably due to the fact that not even the next door neighbors had woken up to start their lawn mower yet, and Hamilton retreated to the armchair in the corner of the living room with his laptop; it had been left on the table with all the commotion from the night before. The constant tapping of computer keys did little to fill the silence but Alexander fell into the easy gate of transcribing his composition books notes into a digital counterpart soon enough.

Eventually, when Alexander found his mind too absent and his body too tired, he set aside his device to venture into the kitchen. Like always, the place was unnervingly clean. It was with a great sense of delight that Alexander noted that the coffee pot in the corner was a French press; he had never learned to use any other type, as the complimentary coffee stand in Ben’s store had only had that one. Behind the French press were an impressive variety of Ziploc baggies, all full of ground coffee. Alexander managed to make a cup of steaming coffee without any problems.

Not wanting to antagonize the LeAiemses any more than was necessary, he thoroughly cleaned the pot and returned to the living room to resume his work. It went much more smoothly this time, and it was without issue that he conducted research on King’s College. The campus, it appeared, was surprisingly reminiscent to the one of the King’s College that Alexander remembered from so long ago. Alexander memorized his daily routes quickly enough and squeezed several notes pertaining to costly textbooks into the margins of one of his full notebooks. He resisted the urge to groan as he scrolled through the prices online. Even with the money that he had saved from his “job” at Ben’s corner store, he would hardly be able to afford them, even though, the core classes and his political science ones would be provided for with his scholarship.

Upstairs, the stuttered splashing of water announced that one- or both- of the LeAimeses had woken up. Hamilton gulped down the rest of his coffee and flew to the kitchen to wash the mug. Something told him that the LeAiemses wouldn’t approve of his caffeine consumption and he wasn’t willing to risk any more than he needed too. With minimum clinking, the ceramic was cleaned and back on it’s rack before the adult upstairs had even tromped down the stairs. By the time that Mrs. LeAiems had made her way downstairs, Alexander was sitting quietly on the couch, his laptop on his lap as he typed furiously, wanting to get all of his ideas into Google Docs before he lost access to the internet.

"You eaten yet?" Her tone was colored with simple worry, as if the events from the night before simply hadn't occurred. Hamilton nodded mutely and she hummed, glancing over at the dish-free sink.

"I cleaned up after myself," Hamilton elaborated, slightly offended by the fact that she appeared to class him with a seven-year-old. She shot him a doubtful look, but Alexander resisted the urge to launch into an argument, to call out her inappropriate actions, or to mention the night before. Eventually, she entered the kitchen, humming as she made herself avocado toast. She plopped herself onto the squashy brown armchair across from the couch Hamilton was sitting on when she finished. She chewed loudly, and Hamilton made a small effort to tap at the keys a little harder, as if the noise might drown out his awareness of her occupancy.

"Do you want to talk about last night?" she asked him. It was said softly, and she probably had meant it to seem understanding. But she had failed. It seemed as if she believed that he would break at the slightest provocation, and that she was therefore obligated to treat him with as much delicacy as one would a young child. He shook his head and she sighed as if disappointed- not in his answer but in him- and left the room to rinse her breakfast dishes.

Mr. LeAiems tromped down the stairs then, short, curly black hair still wet from his shower and his face freshly shaved. The brown leather briefcase that he was holding bumped against his knee with every step that he took. He wore a pair of black slacks, and a light blue dress shirt, a black suit jacket folded neatly over his left forearm. He looked the picture of 'ideal working husband,' and Alexander might have been fooled by the appearance if not for the experience of the night before.

"Good morning," said Mrs. LeAiems, beaming. The woman's husband grinned widely and walked over to kiss her cheek and snag the mug of coffee that Mrs. LeAiems had prepared for him. Alexander did his best to slump down against the back of the couch to the extent that he wasn't even visible. The larger man's eyes swept right over him without pause and Alexander smiled, pleased in that the tactic had seemed to work. Mr. LeAiems didn't even acknowledge him until he was halfway out the door.

Indeed, it was when he was holding the door open and fumbling with his house keys that he looked up and said, "We'll talk after dinner," to Alexander. Hamilton's fingers froze over his laptop keys and he felt as if a lead weight had settled in his chest.

Sure, Hamilton thrived in deadlines, but that was only when they were related to work, or writings. This was no deadline, but rather, a time of execution. Knowing the man and the changes that he wanted to make, he would probably take it upon himself to lay down ground-rules, and take the control that Hamilton didn't freely offer. He tried to push the heaviness to the back of his mind but had the feeling that it would loom over him like some kind of storm cloud for the rest of the day. Hamilton did what he could; he kept writing.

 

* * *

 

"Have fun," Mrs. LeAiems grinned. Hamilton tried his best to mimic the movement, shooting a nervous glance at the enormous campus.

They stood in front of a tall, brick dormitory building, not as modern as Hamilton would have liked, but certainly sufficient. The ground floor had been converted into a simple lobby, and, from what he could tell from his place outside the glass door, was fairly spacious. Several older students stood near the back wall with clipboards; they were probably RA's.

The rest of the campus was surprisingly nice. Occasional trees and courtyards, as well as the rare metal sculpture, were scattered around the place. Hamilton had passed a large fountain when first entering the place; it appeared as if the school had wasted no expense when it came to the campus. Other dorm buildings stood near to Hamilton's own, not far from the larger, academic buildings.

It was eerily familiar, and God had certainly done his part in making it reminiscent to the original King's College. Mrs. LeAiems embraced Hamilton, grinning at him with an apparent sense of pride, and Alexander ignored the nervous churning of his stomach and the sense of unease that flooded his limbs and froze him so that he stood rigidly in the woman's embrace. Mr. LeAiems beamed at him, and Alexander nodded, not sure what else to do.

_'Why are you both so happy? What have you done? Why are you proud?'_

It was a familial bond that the LeAiemses thought themselves to have with Alexander. Hamilton knew otherwise. Being put into a position where he was powerless to change anything, it had been an obligation to humor them. Though they believed that they had been by his side, been a constant, been an ally, they had truly been the source of his problems, and therefore, they were his enemy. It was as if they were two young children, and Alexander their babysitter. If he didn't play the game that they wanted to play, they had the technical power to throw him under the bus, and, as the analogy would put it to be, tell their parents.

But he was almost out.

After three goddamn months of giving them fake smiles so that he wasn't punished for not complying with their idyllic fantasy, he could see the fucking light. He was going to get out. He was going to forget. He was going to escape.

He suffered a final embrace from Mr. LeAiems and gave him a smile. He couldn't back out now. For God's sake, he had even managed to keep their "familial" bond peaceful by definition, so that he might get to keep the laptop. They had fallen for the façade, and now it weighed next to the second-hand textbooks in Alexander's backpack.

"Make sure to visit!" Mrs. LeAiems exclaimed.

' _Ha. Funny joke. Hell no._ '

Alexander assured her that she would.

Then he stepped away.

He was getting away.

He took another step and felt as if he could fly. He wanted to run, to whoop with joy, but the LeAiemses stood behind him still, so he walked with a measured pace.

Other college students bustled around him, consulting their maps of the campus and talking excitedly with one another. Naïve children about to be pitted against the world. Hamilton knew that he wasn't entirely exempt, but he also knew that he truly was unique in comparison to the others, having already suffered a lifetime. His 'uniqueness' had been casualty, though. Although he was able to befriend others well enough, Hamilton was one who thrived with those who he felt that he could be close to. Unfortunately, the reincarnation situation ensured that none would ever reach the level of friendship, understanding, or experience that his friends from the past life had. It was obvious that he couldn't explain the whole 'I used to be a founding father' thing, after all. And so his social pool was rather limited in certain aspects.

Hamilton tried to forget that, knowing that he should take advantage of the exhilaration flooding him while it was still fresh. He knew only too well how the excitement would soon fade and the remnants would morph into exhaustion, confusion, and frustration. It would be best to keep his emotions reined in for the time being. It would mean that the figurative high would last for longer and would allow him complete control over the impression that he so chose to make.

Hamilton pushed the glass door to his dorm building open without hesitation,  fiddling with his backpack strap with one hand and walking towards the RA's. The brown-haired female, who appeared to be oldest asked, "name?" and Hamilton absentmindedly gave them his name. Unfortunately, his high ended there. Unexpected anxiety welled in his gut as the RA scanned the paper on their clipboard ( _What if they didn't have his name? Did he have the wrong building? What if he had committed some wrongdoing without knowing, and they had been told to be on the lookout for him? Had he already screwed up?_ ) before she nodded.

"You're with Mike," she said, nodding towards a blonde kid who appeared to be hardly a year older than Hamilton's physical body himself. The guy waved and grinned, before reaching into the shoulderbag at his side and fumbling through it for a few moments. Keys clinked, and then he withdrew a silver key with a green label reading 'Hamilton'.

"Here you go," Mike said, handing the key to Hamilton. "It's got your room number on there to." Hamilton flipped the green label and read 'D3'. He nodded his thanks and walked towards the elevators and stairs. There was no sign announcing that the elevator wasn't for his use, but there was nothing that would have ruled out the stairs either. After mentally deliberating over the two ways to ascend momentarily, he opted for the elevator, despite the worry that the RA's  would think him lazy. He pressed the buttons with caution and purposely avoided the other students' glance as the chrome doors slid shut.

There was a slight lurch, and then the elevator moved upwards in its rails. The doors slid open after a little while, revealing a hallway that was well-lit by white fluorescent lights. The carpet was a pale gray, and appeared as if it had lain there for a good while, going by the questionable stains that colored it in random spots. Hamilton consulted his key once more, just to ensure that he hadn't misread the tag, and walked forwards to the door with 'D3'. The name tags by the door were still blank slips of paper in their plastic plates, so it was likely that his roommates hadn't filled in their names yet. Deciding against knocking, Hamilton inserted the key and turned it. Hoisting his backpack, he stepped inside.

It was silent inside, so, at first, Hamilton assumed that his roommate hadn't arrived just yet. He shut the door and the door handle made a clicking noise. When he turned around- oh.

Hamilton's mouth dropped open, but he was only vaguely aware of it. He stumbled forwards, disbelieving for a few moments. Hardly had he moved forwards two feet than had his friend leapt forwards, hands sliding around Hamilton's waist and holding the shocked incarnate to his chest.

"Lafayette," Hamilton choked out, staring up at the Frenchman's face in wonder. It was as if he had been thrown into the past, to the late 1780's. Lafayette looked exactly the same, his curly black hair pulled up into a high bun, his grin wide, though shocked, his skin a healthy brown, his eyes flashing with joy. Lafayette didn't verbally reply, only burying his dumbstruck grin in the nape of Hamilton's neck and drawing Alexander closer.

"Alexan-" Lafayette's attempt at speech was choked off by his own exhilarated sob-laugh. " _Mon dieu_ , Alexander!" (My god)

Hamilton's arms finally came up, wrapping around Lafayette and pinning the Frenchman to his body as he buried his face in the other's shirt. The blue cotton grew wet against his cheek as tears leaked from his eyes. He could hear the occasional sob escape the Frenchman despite Lafayette's apparent efforts.

The room might have been elapsed in total silence, but Hamilton couldn't tell. His world was tilting, spinning, blood rushing in his ears, Lafayette's chest warm against the side of his face, his back reassuringly solid underneath his crushing embrace, the wisps of curly hair that had escaped his bun tickling Alexander's face. At last, Lafayette withdrew, not releasing his hold on Alexander's arms. Hamilton wasn't complaining at the continued contact, rather, he lamented the loss of it. It had been years since he had been able to embrace somebody without immediately wishing to step away.

"Alexander Hamilton," Lafayette breathed. Hamilton didn't feel it necessary to reply, having already convinced both himself and Lafayette that neither were apparitions. "My God, Alexander."

"Hi."

Both broke down into laughter, literal tears rolling down their cheeks as they sank to the floor, kept upright only by each other.

" _Bonsoir_ ," (hello) Lafayette gasped back. They both lapsed into a relieved mirth, laughing until their chests hurt and then laughing some more.

It was odd. Though Hamilton had comprehended before that his friends were also in this modern world, it had never truly registered. Perhaps that had been why had felt so alone for so long. Now it was as if two separate worlds, two separate lifetimes, were merging.

"Nice to see you again," Hamilton sighed.

"You too," Lafayette said, smiling. Eventually, a loud curse echoed from the hallway, followed by the thump of a suitcase falling down the stairs. The noise broke Lafayette and Hamilton apart, and they both stood shakily, Lafayette leaning slightly on Hamilton.

"How was your life?" Alexander eventually asked. Lafayette winced.

"Not that I am not thankful for God's generosity, but... he could have put more effort into my... home life, per say."

"How so?"

"I retained the status of nobility of my past life, but my 'parents'," Lafayette finger-quoted the word 'parents' and Alexander felt a smile twitch at the corner of his lips, "behaved as if another addition to their line was unwanted. They were kind enough to put money towards my 'education'," Lafayette finger-quoted again, "and were more than generous on the topic of pocket-money, but, as you might imagine, they were more than willing to allow me to become an exchange student. As it was, I was generally secluded to my bedroom, the anonymous part of the internet or at least, the parts of the internet where I could use a fake name or unclear username, and the backyard. They didn't want me to blemish their status, apparently." Alexander winced.

"Jesus," he said. Hamilton thought that if Lafayette was marooned on a deserted island, he would die of loneliness long before anything as trivial as hunger or thirst could claim him. It sounded as if Lafayette had been forced to confront such loneliness despite the fact that he was far away from such an island. "I wish that you had been given a better life."

Lafayette sighed slightly, then turned to his bulging suitcase, beginning to unpack some sweaters. "As do I. But what about your life?"

Alexander cast his mind back to the island. It had been better; the kids had been less violent. He thought about the LeAiemses. Though not ideal, they had provided for him, and so it would be ridiculous to protest their treatment.

"Some of my past life of mimicked," he began. "The hurricane hit again, and it wasn't any less terrible." Hamilton didn't elaborate, and Lafayette knew better than to ask. In their past life, the story about Alexander's past had only come out after a good many drinks and three years of trusting friendship. "I moved in with a foster family. They were... I can't complain."

Lafayette nodded, seeming a little perturbed by the brief description from a normally so loquacious man, but not commenting. Hamilton tossed the blanket he had nicked from the LeAiemses onto a sheetless bed, frowning and deciding that he would probably be able to fashion a pillow from one of his hoodies later.

His bulging backpack was hung up on the coat-hook, and Hamilton went about the task of hanging up his shirts in the small wardrobe he had been allotted. His clothes hardly took up half the space, and, when faced with Lafayette's pleading eyes, he surrendered the other half to his friend's sweaters. Collapsing upon the shoddy bedding that covered his mattress, Hamilton let out a sigh. He really wanted to cuddle Lafayette, about now. Mentally, he composed a plan dictating how he would grab the Frenchman around the waist, wrap him in a blanket, and snuggle into his chest. Seriously, he would have been relieved to cuddle just about anyone from his past life.

"Do you think we'll have anybody else from the past as our roommates?" Alexander wondered aloud. Lafayette cast a glance at the other two empty mattresses.

"It's possible," he shrugged. "I hope so. God did say that we would be reunited at this college, and I suppose I must simply have faith in that."

Hamilton nodded in silent agreement, casting his gaze towards the ceiling as if hoping that God could perceive his thoughts through the rooms and various other obstructions that remained between his eyes and the sky. Lafayette seemed to sense his melancholy and paused in his unpacking to pad over and sit on the bed next to his friend.

"What are you going to major in?" Lafayette eventually asked. Hamilton answered at once.

"Double-major, poly-sci and English."

Lafayette shot him an incredulous look. "Alexander, the courses won't have gotten easier with time, you realize."

"Of course. I would be disappointed if they had. I already have the core understanding of the English language, as well as a more advanced comprehension, and I have spent the last ten or so years studying politics. That's not to say that it will be easy, but it will certainly be much simpler for one such as myself."

Lafayette smiled. "Do you think you have managed to catch up with today's world?"

"Sleepless nights spent doing so."

Lafayette sighed. "No doubt you have discovered the cheaper, ground coffee, then?"

"God, yes."

"And energy drinks?"

"God, yes."

"Do me a favor and never mix the two."

Alexander refrained from mentioning the one time where he had simply needed to finish his essay on the Constitution's influence on modern politics, and had covertly blended a coffee and the Monster he had snuck from the nearby corner store. It had been half worth it. The essay had been completed, but misspellings and bad phrasing littered the thing.

"What about you?" Alexander eventually asked. Lafayette passed him a schedule and Hamilton scanned it.

"You're majoring in... foreign arrangements? Hmm... Wait!" Hamilton nearly dropped the sheet of paper. "You're taking French 101?! But you grew up in France! Twice!"

"And therein lies the genius," Lafayette said, coyly. Hamilton stared at him in disbelief, then allowed a single laugh of sheer disbelief.

"I have been done proud!" he announced. Lafayette chuckled nervously, then froze. His mouth moved soundlessly for a few moments before he finally asked:

"Does it snow on the ocean?"

Hamilton blinked. Lafayette turned a bright red.

"No?" Alexander replied, unsure. "There are no clouds over large bodies of water, so, no. Why?"

Lafayette hummed. "Just wondering."

Alexander felt a fond smile creeping over his lips, but he jokingly shoved Lafayette so that the Frenchman wouldn't see it. Lafayette fell to the floor with an exaggerated yelp, declaring, " _Mon ami_!" (my friend) "Oh, how you grievously wound me!"

Hamilton laughed and Lafayette arose with a broad grin, giving Hamilton a flamboyant bow before returning to the task of unpacking. Alexander sprawled across the mattress and began tossing an eraser into the air, catching it (normally) before it could hit him in the face. He had surprisingly bad hand-eye coordination for being such an avid writer. He shot a glance out of the window and his eyebrows leapt up when he saw how many people thronged about the visible part of the campus. He swallowed the lump that arose in his throat.

"Dear fricken' God," he murmured. Lafayette glanced over with a cocked eyebrow. "Please make sure that we see our friends soon."

Thunder rumbled.

Alexander jerked in shock, and ended up flailing to the floor, while Lafayette fell upon his bed with a yelp of surprise. They could hear several exclamations from the hallway and some were audible from the courtyard beside the dorm building. Alexander was half-certain his heart had stopped. The hairs on his arms stood up as goosebumps covered him. The small teen shivered involuntarily, suddenly feeling oh so very small. After a brief moment of gathering his wits about him, Hamilton sat up on his bed, trying not to let it be seen how the thunder had scared him. Lafayette and Alexander stared at each other in apprehensive shock and then Hamilton glanced up at the ceiling.

"Er... thank you?" he tried. Lafayette laughed nervously. Hamilton shot him a glower, but the corners of his mouth twitched up into a nervous smile soon enough. They resumed their unpacking, both burying their nerves in a simple task as their minds wandered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'all should listen to Woodkid. Just sayin’.


	6. Still Not Quite Right

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy shit I actually finished the chapter in a week!!!  
> Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go do the homework that I really should have been doing instead of this. (I have no regrets)  
> Alternate Title: in which it becomes glaringly apparent that everyone's problems are being alluded to.

Time passed. Though Hamilton had arrived not minutes after Lafayette, their roommates seemed to be taking their sweet time. Every time Lafayette and Hamilton heard footsteps or voices nearing their room, they would both pause whatever they were doing to shoot a glance towards the closed door. Still, it didn’t open, and there was no knocking.

Each time this happened, both would resume whatever task they were currently attempting to accomplish, pretending that nothing had happened. Hamilton was quite sure that his heart had leapt up to his throat and dropped to his gut so many times that his entire body was probably considered fair housing for it. Still, he couldn’t help the involuntary reaction that still occurred far too often for him to effect any passive façade. Lafayette, in the meanwhile, lay sprawled across the bed, scrolling on a smartphone with a dexterity representing his technological sensibilities.

Instead of admitting to his nerves, Hamilton busied himself with withdrawing his notebooks, doing his best to organize them in the small bookshelf his side of the room had been gifted. Lafayette watched with a single cocked eyebrow as Alexander fumbled through at least ten of the books.

“Are those all filled?” he asked. Alexander dropped the book currently in his hands and froze momentarily, before shooting a guilty smile at his friend. His face burned red and he resisted the urge to chuckle nervously, knowing that it would just make his whole reaction even more awkward.

“Maybe?” he tried. Lafayette chuckled, shook his head, and resumed the task that was scrolling through his phone. Hamilton went back to his books.

Time passed.

The ticking of Lafayette’s shiny, twin-bell alarm clock resonated with a volume that seemed unnaturally loud.

Time passed.

Hamilton got lost in the pages of one of his notebooks.

Voices.

Hamilton was pulled out of his haze by voices.

Not voices.

Mutterings.

The mutterings of a single person.

Not mutterings fit for others’ ears, it seemed.

Soft swearing.

The noise of someone hopping up and down outside of their door, likely on one foot.

Hamilton waved his hand in Lafayette’s vague direction, trying to alert the other. Lafayette glanced up and seemed to realize at once.

Though the person’s one-footed hop and mutterings of “damn book” had ceased, the person hadn’t left. The silhouette of their feet still broke the line of light that shone through the crack underneath the door. Alexander stumbled to his feet, not wanting to be caught off guard any more than was necessary. The doorknob turned.

A teen stepped inside, still grumbling quietly. A single book was tucked underneath one elbow, and a wheeled suitcase was behind him. He wore a graphic tee that Hamilton didn’t bother reading, black jeans, and a navy blue beanie. His eyes were averted, gaze trained on his black Converses. His hair was an utter mess, brown curls apparently having been tamed on occasions previous to but not including this one.

He looked up.

His eyes were still the  _ same fucking shade of clear brown _ .

“ _ Shit _ , Alexander! Lafayette!”

Alexander might have dropped the book he was holding in his rush to get to John. Honestly, he didn’t know. Lafayette was embracing the both of them the next moment, shoving his ridiculously wide grin into John’s hair like he had Alexander’s and laughing.

John stood there awkwardly for a moment, grinning in a mixture of shock and disbelief. For a second, Alexander was afraid that he and Lafayette had overwhelmed their friend. Luckily, the instant that the situation seemed to have registered, Laurens squeezed his friends back with crushing force.

"Holy-" John cut himself off, choosing instead to revel in the embrace. "You- wait, are you two my roommates!?"

" _ Oui _ !" (yes!) Lafayette answered with a broad grin.

John laughed, muttered something that sounding remarkably like, "so God did keep his promise," and relinquished them. He didn't let go of his friends entirely, of course. Instead, he held the two at arm's length, looking from one to the other with a smile on his face. Alexander grinned. John looked as shocked as Alexander felt, and as shocked as Alexander had been when he had first arrived and seen Lafayette. Lafayette looked completely giddy.

A realization struck Alexander. "Jesus," he said, "I hope that our other roommate is an incarnate too."

Lafayette went quiet and John cocked his head to one side, considering.

"Well," John drawled, slowly. Alexander turned red as he realized that his comment had probably been completely unwanted. "I don't think that it's something we should puzzle over. I mean, if we get a roommate who has no idea who the heck we are, then they'll just be confused by all our references. If we get somebody we know, then... then yeah, we'll get somebody that we know. We can't change it, so we might as well just try to ignore it for now."

Alexander nodded in agreement, his face still an unearthly red. Lafayette seemed to notice and he snickered, before ruffling Alexander's hair with a laugh and dancing out of arm's reach to prevent retaliation. Alexander grumbled good-naturedly, resisting the urge to reach up and smooth his hair back into a half-assed ponytail. With a deadpan expression, John slowly reached forwards and did his best to mess-up Hamilton's hair further. Alexander shot him a scowl that twitched into a smile. John grinned, hugged Alexander once more, then leapt to claim one of the two empty beds.

"How was your life?" Lafayette asked, echoing the question that Alexander had asked him upon his own arrival. John shrugged in answer.

"I mean... it wasn't ideal but... yeah. I survived."

Alexander frowned. Lafayette's eyebrows seemed to disappear into his hairline with apparent disbelief, which was an impressive feat considering that his hair was pulled back into a bun.

"Fair enough," Lafayette said, at long last. John gave the frenchman a sheepish grin.

The door opened again.

Everyone looked to see the person who had opened it. A teen who, much like Alexander and John had been before him, was oblivious that there was another incarnate in the room that he had stepped into. In fact, he seemed completely preoccupied with wrestling the folders that seemed to be constantly attempting to escape from his arms. He wore black slacks, worn sneakers, and a navy blue dress shirt. His brown hair was cropped close to his head and was loosely covered by a dark gray beanie. The instant he glanced up, all of his folders slipped out of his arms and his jaw dropped.

"Oh my God," Hercules murmured, before taking several steps forward. He ignored the heap of folders now at his feet, nearly tripping over them in the process, and neared his friends with an expression of shock. "Are you... please say that this is real... oh my God."

"It's real," John tried, stepping forwards, seeming to share Hercules's surprise. "We're here."

Hercules stared at John. Lafayette swore softly from beside Hamilton and Alexander glanced over just in time to see the frenchman hurry forwards. Lafayette's arms went around Hercules, nearly knocking the other incarnate over with his momentum, and the curly-haired teen tightened his embrace so that his cheek was pressed against Hercules's shoulder. The spy's arms came up automatically, returning Lafayette's embrace loosely, though Hercules remained quiet.

" _ Salut _ , Hercules," (hello) Lafayette said softly. Alexander maneuvered so that he could hug them both as best as he could manage. John stepped over to Hercules's other side so that he might attempt to embrace them all simultaneously. The room fell silent and the four incarnates stood there for several moments, not moving a bit.

"Dear God," Hercules eventually said, seeming to come back to himself as he hugged Lafayette with sudden, crushing force. The frenchman laughed weakly and Laurens and Hamilton loosened their own embraces slightly. "Dear God," Hercules repeated. He gave a shocked laugh.

His nearly comatose state having ended, the tailor rushed to hug the other two incarnates, drawing a small squeak from John. When Mulligan embraced Hamilton, Alexander couldn't bring himself to care that it was probably too tight. Hercules was big and warm and caring and his arms encircled Hamilton's small form completely, and honestly, Alexander had really missed the taller man's hugs. Hercules withdrew and Hamilton resisted the urge to pull the entire group into another embrace. ' _ Jesus fuck _ ,' he thought, ' _ it's like I'm touch-starved, or something. _ '

"Is this...?" Hercules motioned around them at the room. "Are we all going to be here?"

"Yeah," Hamilton said, before rushing to correct his statement. "Well, Lafayette and Laurens and I. We will all be occupying this vicinity, assuming that you are to join us?" It was with effort that Hamilton cut himself off and ceased his elaboration. Hercules nodded, fumbling for his pocket and withdrawing a copy of the room key.

"Whoa," said John. He didn't elaborate, and no one expected him to, knowing that the virginian was just putting to verbalization his obvious shock. Hamilton laughed softly and Lafayette returned to Hercules's side to wrap his arms around the other incarnate once more. Hamilton wondered if his want for physical contact should have been acted upon earlier.

After several long seconds, Hamilton returned to John.

"Whoa!" John laughed lightly as Alexander embraced him, and Hamilton felt his cheeks burn red. However, instead of making a joke or otherwise teasing the smaller incarnate, John returned the action. They stood like that for a while and though he was relieved, Hamilton couldn't help but to ponder whether or not he had accidentally made their whole reunion incredibly awkward.

Eventually, Hamilton withdrew and walked over to his bed, collapsing onto his mattress and keeping his gaze fixed on his friends, wanting to revel in the sight of them. John grabbed his backpack from where it had lain abandoned by Lafayette's bed and joined Alexander on the mattress. Alexander stifled the ridiculous urge to embrace his friend  _ again _ , internally rolling his eyes at himself. What the hell was even wrong with him, at this point?!

Lafayette and Hercules still hadn't separated, and Lafayette was now burying his ridiculous grin in the nape of Hercules's neck. ' _ See _ ,' Alexander thought dryly, 'they  _ can pull off long hugs. _ ' John appeared torn between teasing the two other incarnates, joining them, or leaving them be.

"How are you?" Hamilton finally asked, his voice still sounding soft despite the silence of the room. John hummed, as in in answer, before elaborating.

"I don't really know. But, I mean, good, obviously."

Alexander laughed, more in relief than mirth. He sat up only to flop back down. The dark blue blanket shifted slightly to reveal a bare corner of the mattress, but Hamilton didn't bother moving to fix it.

To have Hercules, Lafayette, and John with him once more... it was... odd. It wasn't as if Hamilton suddenly felt like himself once more, as if he was suddenly cured from all of the seeming ailments that attacked his mind so frequently. It was relieving, but he felt no less lost. Opting to roll over onto his stomach, Hamilton looked out the window and kicked his feet in the air idly. Their reunion had been- was- heartfelt. But... the feeling of confusion that had made itself host in Hamilton's mind didn't dissipate. The sadness that had long ago faded into the background still loomed over him like a storm cloud, not immediately affecting anything but acting as a haze which positive emotion couldn't seem to penetrate. Still, his heart was lighter than it had been in seemingly years, and Hamilton felt as if he could leap about despite the sadness that figuratively tethered him to the ground.

Hamilton broke out of his haze of thoughts to see that Lafayette and Hercules had finally broken apart, and that the former had gone to help the latter gather up the many folders from where they lay in a jumble on the threshold of the dorm. Hamilton pushed himself out of the bed and stood.

"I can help you unpack?" he offered to John, knowing from experience that simple tasks were best to take his mind off things. John nodded.

"Oh yeah. Thanks." They walked over to John's bed and the immigrant immediately unzipped Laurens's suitcase to withdraw his clothing. John laughed at Alexander's apparent enthusiasm, threw a pair of socks at Hercules, then joined Alexander.

"Do you seriously have no leggings?" Alexander eventually asked, having sorted through all of John's jeans.

"Nope." John popped the 'p'. From the other side of the room, Lafayette squawked as if personally offended.

" _ How, mon ami _ !?" (my friend!?) Lafayette asked. John rolled his eyes.

"They'd just rip or tear to get caught on something. Besides," John paused, then continued talking. "People might think I'm lazy, or something."

Hercules and Lafayette both shot him raised eyebrows. "Since when have you cared what other's thought?" Hercules asked. John laughed it off, rolling his eyes.

"You do realize, that everyone-" John paused, then cocked his head to the side before trying to explain again. "Well, in this world, you could literally be in the running for president and lose solely because somebody doesn't like your hair, or your shoes, or something equally as mundane. Everyone judges a lot more, and they aren't afraid to play dirty. I don't want someone bringing up my apparent laziness in college as a form of argument."

The room fell silent. Hamilton finally spoke. "I suppose that such realizations will only fuel the figurative hellfire that is my current view on this America."

Lafayette groaned. "Don't be a downer!"

"I'm not!" Hamilton insisted. "Don't get me wrong, I'm really proud of America in some ways. But honestly... it pains me right  _ here _ ," he motioned towards his heart, "that everyone is so biased. Even during our time we saw how slavery was slowly but steadily becoming viewed as inhumane. I think that we all realize," Hamilton was almost too far gone in his rant to realize that the other might not share his views, "that this world has progressed. However, the fact that a law has been made no longer means that it is adopted as material for everyone's moral compass. For example, gay marital rights." Hamilton broached the topic with slight unease, not sure how he would be expected to react if his friends didn't believe in it as he did.

"We have made laws allowing same-sex marriage and some states have anti-discrimination laws, but that doesn't mean that there aren't still cruel, heartless acts committed against people with homosexual inclinations. Some normal civilians even support such actions. We are no longer a nation united, but a nation ruled by technical laws that are hardly enforced.

"The people no longer care for our country and their fellow civilians, but only for themselves, wanting self-advancement no matter the cost. We are no longer a nation of soldiers, but a country of archangels and demons in high places, ruling divided and conflicted people. Fights are common, and expected of those who are of certain ethnicities. Racism has wrent a gap so wide that it could take centuries to close. 

"Furthermore, it is said racism that contributes to gentrification. I guarantee you; there could be a Latino person and a Caucasian in eastern Manhattan both applying for the same apartment, and the Caucasian would get the place. The Caucasian would probably receive it even if they were female, which is really saying something considering the sexism that plays such a huge part in our demographical economy, even if we deny it. Thus, we promote racism by denying people things based solely on their ethnicities, as well as turn a blind eye to the people who steal from others.

"It is because of this that small neighborhoods are needing to deal with gentrification to the extent that, in a hundred years, it'll likely be only the wealthy middle-class white people who inhabit them. Rent is escalating, the rich are stealing, racism and sexism are thriving, protests are shut down violently and unlawfully, so, yeah. I definitely see why God reincarnated us."

The room was absolutely silent. ' _ Fuck. _ ' "Sorry," Hamilton rushed to make amends.

"No, no," John said, frowning slightly. "I think that you're right, and all. Just...  _ shit _ ! This country... it definitely didn't meet our hopes."

There were echoes of agreement from around the room. Lafayette looked contemplative.

"Perhaps," the frenchman began, "I could try to aid the solving of these issues with international backup? It will be a bit of a bargain, but I am entirely sure that I would be able to manage it."

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves, though," said Hercules. "We haven't even graduated yet. I don't doubt that, as incarnates, it is our job to help fix this, but we can't forget our own lives. We can help, sure, but we can't expect to be machines of solutions. Alexander," some humor mixed with Hercules's somber tone. "I'm looking at you."

Alexander shrugged, his lips twitching slightly as he tried to hide a smirk. "I'm definitely not a machine, so obviously, I would never expect such a thing of myself."

Lafayette shot him a raised eyebrow, much to Alexander's chagrin. John chuckled from beside him.

"And so the 'Protect Alexander Hamilton from Himself' group was began," Lafayette said somberly.

"Was formed," Hamilton corrected. He realized belatedly what the frenchman had said. "And wait!"

Lafayette and John laughed while Hercules hid a snicker. Hamilton rolled his eyes and willed his cheeks to stop imitating a tomato. "Forget I said anything," Alexander grumbled. When Lafayette wouldn't stop chuckling, he threw a pair of socks at the frenchman, then resumed unpacking John's things. Lafayette did his best to bat the socks away from himself, but they hit him square in the face nonetheless. Hamilton silently congratulated himself, both on the throw and how he had managed to sufficiently distract himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FUN FACT: My friend, Aaron, and I went up to Juneau this weekend. My grandmother took us to a bookstore. When Aaron looked over, I had a stack of books _literally_ obscuring my head. All of them were historical or political. Most were over three hundred pages. I pulled a Hamilton. I have no regrets.


	7. "This will be difficult indeed."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Introducing... wait... what?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sooo I've been pretty lazy with updating... whoops. BUT WAIT!!! I'll get out of school around June 14th, so you can expect a more regulated update-schedule then. In other news: I finally furthered the plot :D

"I really don't want to go," John whined, shooting a glance at the door.

"C'mon, John," Alexander sighed, extending his hand towards his friend. John took it begrudgingly and Alexander threw all of his weight into attempting to lift Laurens from where he lay sprawled on the floor. John steadfastly refused to contribute to the effort. Eventually, Hercules sighed, laid his backpack onto his mattress, and walked over to lift John to his feet. Laurens audibly squeaked as he was lifted in the air. Mulligan let Laurens's feet kick in the air a few times before he set him down.

"Thanks, elevator," Alexander joked. Hercules raised an eyebrow.

"Elevator?"

"'Cause you, y'know, lifted him? And people in the U.K. call elevators lifts?" Hamilton began to worry that his joke had been too obscure, but his worries were dismissed when Hercules laughed.

"Of course. Leave it to Alexander Hamilton to make a cultural pun," Mulligan said, grinning widely. Hamilton shrugged, not knowing what to say in response. A chuckle came from Lafayette's bed. Alexander looked over to see that his friend was sitting cross-legged on his mattress, his shoulders slightly hunched as his left hand steadied a small mirror. When the mirror moved to reflect at the correct angle and Lafayette's other hand came into view, Hamilton raised his eyebrow.

"Eyeliner?"

Lafayette shrugged, looking a little uncomfortable as he dipped the tip of his brush back into the container. "Why not,  _ oui _ ?" (yes?)

Laurens cocked his head to the side, considering, and for a second, Hamilton was afraid that he would warn Lafayette of how the makeup could affect his image.

"It looks good," Hamilton rushed to say. As much as Alexander loved John and as blunt as he was himself, even Alexander could recognize that John could be a bit tactless at times.

Luckily, his fears went unfulfilled, and John said, with a grin: "I like it!"

Lafayette nearly dropped the eyeliner onto his light blue sheets. " _ Comment _ ?!" (what?!)

"It makes you look," John gestured at Lafayette as if trying to find the right word, "...fierce! Yeah, fierce."

Mulligan laughed and leaned down to examine Lafayette's eyes. "Yeah, I gotta agree. Good call, Lafayette."

" _ Merci _ ," (thanks) said Lafayette, still seeming a bit stunned that his choice hadn't been met with any resistance. Mulligan hummed in response.

"So, are we finally going now?" Hamilton asked, deciding to switch to a less riskier conversation topic. Lafayette didn't like it when other criticized him. The third time that Lafayette had gotten drunk enough to admit long-held secrets, back in Alexander's past life, he had confessed that the reason he'd had no major qualms about leaving France was that Marie-Antoinette had mocked his dancing in front a crowd during a party. Since then, he hadn't entered the building where the party had been held since. Hell, he hadn't even gone to that area of the Paris. Hamilton, who at the time had been escorting a staggering, drunk Lafayette to his inn room, knew that the even had likely affected Lafayette's confidence in general. When Lafayette had first starting presenting ideas to Washington, he had done so nervously and quietly. By the time two weeks had elapsed, he had grown far more confident, and the anxiety hadn't made itself known.

Still, tactical planning and wearing makeup were two very different things (although that could be argued). Hamilton didn't want to run the risk of the anxiety coming back to haunt the frenchman. All of the incarnates had already suffered literal lifetimes; they didn’t need any more problems. John broke him out of his thoughts.

“Urgh,” Laurens groaned. “Seriously, Alexander. You already know your way around campus- hell, so does Hercules! We don’t need to go to orientation. It isn’t necessary”

“Yes,” Alexander slid his laptop into his backpack and put it on, “it is.”

John pouted dramatically. Alexander trudged over and pulled him towards the door. “Let’s go,” he said, making his voice uncharacteristically deep and slurring his words. A hint of a smirk colored the words. Lafayette chuckled and a smile twitched at John’s lips. John allowed himself to be dragged out without further protest.

They didn't stop to talk to anyone on their way- although Lafayette did wave at some sophomore- and reached the lobby without issue. It was more crowded than Alexander would have liked, but he didn't complain, instead choosing to throw himself into the crowd with Lafayette at his side, engaging random people in conversation. For once, Alexander was in his element. Or at least, he felt as if he was at first.

Conersing, dancing around others with words, was Hamilton's talent. Unfortunately, it had grown energy-sapping in the later years of his first life, and had been exhausting for him to partake in during all of his second one as thus far. Half the time it was so because of Alexander's anxiety that he might interpret something incorrectly. The other half was because he had to heavily analyze the words he was to speak before he spoke them, knowing that he had no political position or wealth to fall back. Furthermore, society was more likely to view him unfavorably in this world, as a small immigrant who'd never once graced the US school systems until now, according to the government's records. Now that he was finally at King's College and had his friends back, it was easier for Hamilton to speak freely and to counteract the involuntarily tense tone of the conversation.

Still, though he had retained his social skills, Alexander found it far more and more exhausting to use them. It was as if the people that he tried to speak to had blinds pulled over their vision, obstructing their thoughts and incorporating a haze in their intelligence. They were illusioned, and talking to them felt far less exciting than Alexander remembered. It was almost choking. Everyone had the same interests, similar thought processes, identical weekends, matching views, and uniform actions. They were all robots, in a way. Alexander's focus went into drawing something unique out of each person despite his efforts to do otherwise, and it grew exhausting. He couldn't just ignore them- they were still people even if they hid their individuality underneath bland thoughts- but he couldn't stand any of them long enough to wait around and draw said individuality out of them. He was drowning in uniformity, and it was seeping into him. Wherever he exposed originality, it was attacked and beaten back. Alexander had to suppress his thoughts, his ideas, which took far more effort than it should. Though Alexander remained at the center of the throng, he had been separated from Lafayette at some point, and couldn't help the feeling that he was crushingly alone in a sea of mannequins. The feeling was of a whole new war.

He walked through the sea of faceless constructs, trying to find those who stood out, straining his hearing in effort to overhear something that didn't directly pertain to the football game last weekend, or a type of makeup. Occasionally, he caught snippets of interest- a political stance voiced by a girl with bright green hair, a discussion about global warming shared by two boys with long hair similar to Lafayette's- but it never took more than a minute for the subjects to change into something more uniform.

Alexander paused for a moment, trying to eliminate the faceless people from his thoughts. When he did, he glanced around the room, trying to look past the uniformity. Entire crowds of people disappeared from his vision; they wouldn't retrieve the the shattered remains of their true selves from among the soup of similarity for many years more, and would instead remain mindless promoters of society. Still, several people remained visible. Some were faint, but they were still there. It was surreal.

Alexander noticed that, even though some groups had made a point of standing out, they had adopted regularity- and not in a healthy way. They were as invisible as the majority of their peers. Alexander blinked and, suddenly, the crowd was back, crushing in their numbers.

John was right.

Alexander was pessimistic as hell. And pretty narcissistic too, apparently. Alexander ruthlessly crushed his sense of unease underneath a facade of confidence and continued the task of socializing, even though he was all too aware that the figurative internal meter signifying his patience and energy was quickly dropping.

“Lafayette!” Alexander called, upon catching sight of the frenchman. Lafayette looked up with a grin, politely exiting a conversation and hurrying over.

“ _ Mon ami _ ?” (my friend?) Lafayette inquired. Alexander chuckled nervously, already feeling as if Lafayette was slipping away, into the abyss of society.

“ _ Je suis désolé _ ,” (I am sorry) Alexander laughed, waving his hand and trying hard to be casual. “I think I’ve lost John. You know where he is?” The excuse was hurried but would serve well enough.

Lafayette shrugged, giving the room a brief scan with his eyes. “ _ Non _ ,” (No) Lafayette admitted. “He could be with Hercules.”

Alexander nodded, a little relieved. “Guess so.  _ Merci _ .” (Thank you.) Still a little unsure, Alexander wandered towards the border of the room. Behind him, Lafayette slipped back into an easy conversation with yet another student.

Lafayette was right, as it turned out. John and Hercules were over by the vending machine, talking quietly but animatedly. Alexander let them be, choosing to wander around the room a little more. As he walked, a conversation stood out from the din of the crowd and Alexander glanced towards the participators.

A woman, a woman that Alexander knew too well, was talking to some guy in a red jacket. The woman's- or teen's, as Alexander realized- straight black hair was twisted up in a loose bun, though several wisps escaped the confinement, falling over her shoulders and ears. She wore a light blue t-shirt with a faded ski-resort insignia and dark blue skinny jeans. Her eyes were gleeful and a smile tinged her voice. Beside her, a girl with tan skin, curly, dark brown hair, and a subdued yellow sweater snickered quietly, looking amused by her sister’s conversation. Behind the both of them, a teen with a pink shirt and heels that impressed upon her already notable height crossed her arms, raising an eyebrow as if amused.

Eventually, the male that the black-haired girl was debating laughed and waved goodbye. Hamilton approached the three girls with numb legs.

' _ Hadn’t God said that no others would be incarnated? Well, He didn’t say that explicitly. But He did say that He rarely- if ever- ever let others keep their memories, right? And there’s no way in hell that this could be coincidence? Right? Maybe? What’s happening. _ '

The sister in the pink shirt turned to Alexander, a smile hinting at her lips. ‘ _ Does she remember me? _ ’ Alexander thought, a little panicked. Angelica Schuyler smiled at Alexander Hamilton.

“Hey!” Angelica said in greeting. Alexander’s heart pounded in his ears.

‘ _ Does she remember anything!? _ ’

“My name is Angelica Schuyler.”

The words rang- reverberated- through Alexander’s head. That was what she’d said in his past life. Was she teasing him? Wasn't her greeting a little too formal for this time!? Alexander bowed, knowing that the action would seem joking to any onlooker, and grinned as suavely as he could. ‘ _ Please tell me she remembers. _ ’

“Alexander Hamilton.” His voice sounded small to himself, though it probably didn’t to Angelica. His tone didn’t tremble like Alexander had anticipated it would. It didn't sound anything at all like he had anticipated it would. He had thought it would come out quiet, broken. Instead, it had come out almost confident. The whole greeting sounded foreign to Hamilton’s own ears, though he knew it wouldn't sound odd to any eavesdroppers. The other two Schuyler sisters looked over, but Alexander couldn’t see any recognition on any of their faces. ‘ _ Do they not remember!?? _ ’

“I'm Elizabeth- I go by Eliza, though,” the black-haired girl informed Alexander cheerfully.

Alexander wanted to scream. ‘ _ My own goddamn wife doesn’t remember me, will never believe me, will never be my wife. She won't know. She won't- No. No. _ No!’

“And I’m Peggy,” the shortest sister laughed. The laugh sounded a little false to Alexander, but that was probably due to the panic flitting through his mind. Angelica tried to cut in, to explain Peggy’s full name, but Peggy jokingly shoved her sister. Angelica laughed.

"Nice to meet you three," Alexander said. Somehow, he mustered up the strength to smile slightly.

Angelica and Peggy both echoed quiet 'you too's, while the third sister went a little further in her response.

“Likewise. Where’re you from?” Eliza asked. Her cheeks were a slight pink.

‘ _ 1804 _ ,’ Alexander wanted to answer, drily. Instead, he said, “The Nevis. Little place in the-”

“-Caribbean,” Peggy finished. “Yep. I did a report on the produce from there a couple years ago. Cool place, really.”

Alexander wanted to run away, to scream. These were his Schuyler sisters in everything but their own knowledge. What kind of cruel trick had God decided to play!?

“Yeah,” he agreed. “Could do with a little less sun, though.” What was he saying? Automatic conversation. Default noise. The expected dance of civilities until he could escape and run until he was within an inch of death.

“I’ll bet,” Peggy said.

“You don’t need to bet,” Alexander said, affecting a solemn facade. “I would rather have lived in Valley Forge during the revolutionary war!” Did he need to verify it was really him before the sisters would acknowledge him? Forcibly ring a bell, or something?

The Schuyler sisters grinned at his joke. Eliza giggled.

“That sun… ‘tis as evil as Thomas Jefferson was,” Alexander maintained, faking a mock shudder. ' _ twice deceitful _ ,' his mind chimed, unwarranted. ' _ Fake and mock, fake and mock. _ ' Panic laced Alexander's mind. How could they not remember? “No, really!” he said, when the three laughed.

“Alexander!” Lafayette’s heavily accented voice rose just above the din of the room. Alexander’s head swivelled. Lafayette might give him away. The frenchman would hug- possibly cry in relief- first, ask questions later.

“Sorry,” Alexander said. “My friend’s looking for me. Again, nice to meet you!”

“See you around?” Eliza said. Angelica nodded with a grin and Peggy smiled slightly.

"Definitely." Alexander escaped. He found his friend not long after, scanning the room from over by the staircase. “Lafayette!” he called, breathless.

Lafayette cocked an eyebrow. “ _ Oui, mon ami? _ ” (Yes, my friend?)

“Alexander!” John called. He and Hercules stood beside Alexander. “We’ve been looking everywhere for you.”

“Sorry, sorry,” Alexander apologized. He felt like he was about to explode. Like he was going to have melt down worthy of a two-year-old in the middle of the lobby. “I need to tell you guys something. Urgent. Now. Dorm. We can’t wait. I’m not joking.” His friends exchanged glances. ‘ _ Do they think I’m just being weird? _ ’

“Okay, Alexander,” Hercules said, shooting a final look around the room before walking to the stairs. Alexander was shaking. He couldn't move. John seemed to notice and the virginian grabbed the caribbean’s arm, dragging Alexander after the tailor. Lafayette followed. Once Alexander's feet met the shoddy carpeting of the staircase, something snapped internally and he began to run.

Alexander took the steps two at a time, afraid his legs would fail but not willing to slow down. He had to put as much distance as he could between himself and the lobby  _ now _ . With each step, the words ' _ they don't remember, they don't remember _ ' pounded in his head as if in tandem with his footsteps. Lafayette laughed breathlessly, if not a little nervously, at his hurry. The group made it to the first floor and Alexander rushed to the elevators, jamming the 'up' button several times even though he knew it wouldn't procure results any faster than if he had just pressed the arrow once. His friends crowded around him- which, oddly enough, didn't result in the suffocating sensation he had anticipated- and shot each other expressions of worry. The elevator dinged and the doors slid open agonizingly slowly. Thank god- thank  _ god _ -, nobody stood inside. Alexander stumbled into the box, only able to stop himself from falling by grabbing onto the handrail. His friends followed him.

The doors slid shut. Alexander's breathing was speeding up. It was growing harder to inhale. His limbs began to ache. The elevator lurched and Alexander stumbled. If it wasn't for John's arms that encircled him immediately, he would have fallen. Alexander muttered a quiet missive of thanks, though he had no idea what exactly he had said, as the pounding in his head had overshadowed the verbalization. John didn't relinquish Alexander, for which the smaller man was grateful for. He clutched Lauren's arm, a sob almost working its way out of his throat. Alexander realized that his friends were talking.

"Alexander? Alexander!" Hercules hovered in his vision. Alexander groaned softly, unable to form words.

"Alexander? Are you sick?" Lafayette laid a cool hand over Hamilton's forehead, his eyebrows drawing together in worry.

"Not... sick..." Alexander managed. The very word reminded him of his mother.

"Alexander! C'mon. What's wrong?" John lifted Alexander's arm and dropped it around his own shoulders, stumbling a little as he tried to manage his friend's weight. The elevator doors dinged open. Fresh air filled the confining elevator. John began to stagger forwards. "Laf-"

Lafayette, hearing John, easily lifted Alexander away from John, holding him to his chest and ignoring the quiet squeak that Alexander let out. Lafayette began walking- jogging, almost. Alexander's feet were literally suspended; Lafayette was far stronger than Alexander had ever given him credit for. The small teen squeezed his eyes shut, as if to stop the fears permeating his mind. The cotton of Lafayette's shirt felt cool against Alexander's cheek, though that didn't ease each laborious breath any. ' _ Don't remember, don't remember, don't remember, don't remember- _ ' abruptly, Alexander realized he was murmuring aloud around each difficult inhalation. He realized now how Lafayette had first thought him to be sick. His delirious murmurs were sufficient almost to convince himself of such.

"Fuck," Hercules swore softly. Alexander heard a door open. "Alexander. Alex. Buddy. You gotta calm down. I know it's hard, but I need you to do it. Please. Take a deep breath."

' _ I can't. I can't breathe. _ '

Vaguely, Alexander felt himself being set down on a mattress. The soft blanket under his ankles was enough to confirm that it wasn't his own.

"Mattress you feel?" Lafayette tried, his accent heavy, seeming a little helpless. The frenchman's English was slipping. Alexander did his best to nod. " _ Oui, accord _ ..." (yes, okay...)

"Here." Hercules was speaking now. "You hear my voice, right?"

" _ Si _ ," (Yes) Alexander whimpered, frustrated by himself.  _ He needed to tell them! _ John, who apparently knew Spanish, translated Alexander's answer.

"He said yes."

"Okay, okay. Alex. I want you to do what I say. Good?" Hercules didn't give Alexander the chance to answer. "Good. Okay. Breathe in."

Alexander's lungs filled with air. He wheezed and it escaped him. He coughed. Tears pricked at his eyes. John rushed forward but Hercules held him back.

"No, no, that was good. Let's try again, okay? Breathe in."

This time, Alexander managed to retain the air. He tried to talk immediately. "Schuyler-" his short vice of energy left him, leaving the creole gasping for air.

"Slow down!" Hercules ordered him.

' _ I _ can't _ slow down _ !'

"Don't talk yet," John amended. Hercules nodded.

"Just breathe," said the tailor. Alexander tried. Shakily, he managed a regulated exhalation.

"Good! You're doing great," John told him. Alexander leaned into Lauren's side, managing one inhalation and then another.

"Don't talk yet," Lafayette said, still seeming extraordinarily scared by Alexander's fit. He had recovered his English, as it seemed. Alexander did as Lafayette bid, doing his best to remain content with the simple act of breathing sufficiently.

Inhale.

Exhale.

Inhale.

Exhale.

After a minute, Alexander found it within himself to speak. "The Schuyler sisters." His voice was quiet. His friends froze. "They're here."

Lafayette gasped, a smile making its way across his face. John and Hercules remained silent, unsure. "Alexander! That is no bad news! We should be celebrating, indeed!"

"They don't remember."

Lafayette's smile slipped off of his face and both John and Hercules adopted expressions of shocked sadness.

"N-none of them?" John asked.

"Well... I don't think so. I-I made a lot of... references to the war, and my vendetta against Jefferson but... nothing seemed to register."

The room fell silent.

"Oh," Lafayette said softly. " _ Mon ami, je suis désolé _ ." (My friend, I am sorry.)

Alexander sighed and reclined upon the mattress. The bed was Lafayette's he realized, now that he took the liberty to glance around at his surroundings. "It is through no fault of yours, my friend. Nor God's. I should not have grown lenient in my caution, at any rate. I may have had some sort of fit in the middle of the lobby, had I been any more so."

"It's not your fault either, Alexander," John said. "I suppose that none of us should have let down our guard to the extent that we did. I mean... I guess we just gotta be careful, yeah? We don't really know what to expect."

The room was quiet until Alexander saw fit to speak again.

"I concur with you, in essence. I believe that I mentally divided this life- both future and past- into two halves, said halves being before I found those I remembered and after I found those I remembered. I believe that I have miscalculated most grievously, as I didn't acknowledge the difficulty that would come in the latter half. I assumed that it would be lived in relative ease, that it would simply be resuming my past life. I was wrong. I have changed since then, as I think we all have. This won't be guided by past experience, but rather, hindered by unsurity."

Murmurs of agreement echoed throughout the room.

"We haven't even found Burr, Jefferson, and Madison yet," Hercules added.

Lafayette sighed. "This will be difficult indeed."


	8. Adjustment

Alexander fell asleep early, for once. To be specific, he fell asleep curled against Hercules' chest with his hand in Lafayette's hair and his foot on John's lap, facing the impromptu television Lafayette had made with his Ipad. When still awake, they had been watching Disney films and proving to each other their incompetence in current culture; only Hercules had seen a majority of them before. Alexander hadn't seen any, though he greatly delighted in the tale of _Mulan_ , as did Lafayette. John was partial to _Moana_ and Hercules to, unsurprisingly, _Hercules_ . The tailor took great pleasure in belting out as much as ' _I Won't Say I'm in Love_ ' as he could, which included both the main vocals and chorus, much to the amusement of their entire group. By the time the credits of _The Princess and the Frog_ rolled, they were all sound asleep.

* * *

 

The next morning, the agitated buzzing of John's phone woke the lot of them.

"Shit," John mumbled, his voice husky with sleep. Alexander blinked a couple times, adjusting to the earliest rays of light that peeked out from over the section of campus buildings depicted in their window. John fumbled for his phone, quickly shutting it off. Nevertheless, the damage had been done.

As it became apparent, Alexander's friends woke in different ways.

John stumbled to his feet, eyes bleary, and hurried over to his desk. After a near mishap which involved nearly downing a bottle of Listerine, he popped the top of a lukewarm can of Starbucks coffee. Alexander, still unwilling to move from where he sat wedged between Lafayette and Hercules, shot him a jealous glare. John handed the coffee down to the small immigrant with an exasperated eyeroll. Alexander did his best to refrain from chugging the whole thing and handed it back, his mind creaking to a start as he tried to recall the location of his laptop. Hercules mumbled something and rolled over, as if hiding from the sunlight, while Lafayette disentangled himself from his friends and got to his feet in a way that could only be described as a lazy, floor-based gymnastics routine; it involved several forwards roll and what appeared to be an attempted backbend. At any rate, it was very creative.

"I'm-" Lafayette's words were punctuated by a single yawn, "-awake."

John mumbled something halfheartedly in response and Alexander groaned loudly and wordlessly. John yanked the window curtains shut with the rattling of metal curtain-rings. Hercules didn't respond. Lafayette toed Hercules and, when the tailor refused to move, the frenchman delicately stepped over him and relegated himself to sifting through his wardrobe.

Alexander got to his feet and padded over to his own bed, opening the single drawer underneath his wardrobe cabinet-doors and withdrawing a mismatched pair of socks. The match to the normal white sock was probably somewhere underneath the underwear, but Alexander was satisfied with the striped green one in its stead. He yanked off his v-neck, ignoring John's mocking wolf-whistle from behind him, and pulled a gray T-shirt patterned with some print he couldn't care less about over his head. Lafayette's arm reached over him to open the wardrobe doors and withdraw a pastel blue hoodie. Somehow, it had escaped all food-stains.... a feat which a majority of Hamilton's pants hadn't managed, Alexander realized, as he rifled through the other side of his drawer. At long last, he managed to extract a pair of dark gray, relatively clean jeans.

Alexander shot a glance behind him to see that John was flipping a striped gray and black shirt so that it wasn't inside-out, while Lafayette picked at the lint on his sweater, both pointedly facing away from him. Hercules' face was still buried in the carpet. Alexander unzipped his pants and hurried through the process of changing. The least the campus could have spared were some changing screens, for God's sake. Alexander yanked a dark green hoodie imprinted with some white geometrical design over his head, rolling up the sleeves to get rid of the unavoidable sweater-paws it gave him and pushing down the hood. When he turned around in search of a hairbrush, the first thing he saw was John's very nice, very bare ass. The tanned virginian was still facing the draped window as he fumbled through a drawer, presumably in search of boxers. Alexander promptly turned around with a red face.

' _That didn't happen._ '

After several moments of trying to tamp down the blush Alexander knew was covering his face to no avail, the creole remembered where he had put his hairbrush and unzipped the front pocket of his backpack. A quiet hiss escaped him as he yanked it through his hair once. A large hand accompanied with an exasperated series of, " _Non_!"s stopped him from pulling the brush through his hair a second time.

"Alexander!" Lafayette protested. Alexander turned with a raised eyebrow to see that Lafayette was probably the most prepared for the day out of all of them. Lafayette wore the light blue sweater he had taken out of Alexander's closet, now lint-ball free, and a pair of thick black leggings. The frenchman's hair was pulled back into a tight bun and he wore eyeliner like he had the day before, though, now, Alexander could see the dark brown shimmer in it. "You don't brush your hair like that," Lafayette huffed. "You start from the tips and work your way up."

Alexander raised an eyebrow and tried not to wince as his friend detangled the brush from his knotted hair. Lafayette held a delicate fist-full of Alexander's hair and swept the brush's bristles over the ends, his eyebrows furrowed in concentration. Alexander was surprised to note that the action didn't hurt him in the least as Lafayette worked his way up the section of hair that he held. "Like this," Lafayette supplied. Alexander repressed a smile.

" _Merci_ ," (Thank you) Hamilton said.

Lafayette hummed in response and handed the brush back to Alexander, who stared at it in false abject horror. "Hold on!" he said. "Feel free to keep brushing my hair!" Lafayette chuckled and pushed him onto the mattress, clambering onto the bed behind him to continue brushing his hair. Alexander's eyes slid shut and he smiled at the gentle pressure sifting through his hair, pulling ever so slightly.

"Are you going to brush _my_ hair?" Alexander heard John ask jokingly.

" _Non_ ," (No) Lafayette said, a smirk in his voice.

Hercules rolled over. "What about me?" the tailor grumbled.

"You'll have to get ready first, _mon ami_." (my friend)

Hercules grumbled something along the lines of: " _So_ not worth it," before getting up and walking over to his wardrobe. Somehow, in the narrow window of time supplied between after he had finished greeting the rest of his friends and before they had left to their fruitless orientation, Hercules had managed to organize all of his clothing. And Hercules, much like Lafayette, had a lot of it. If not for the fact that Alexander knew from experience how much Hercules liked his sleep, Alexander would have been half-convinced he had gotten up in the middle of the night to unpack. It was an admirable feat, nonetheless.

Lafayette's fingers began to twist Hamilton's hair.

"Laf..." Alexander trailed off.

" _Oui_?" (Yes?)

"What are you doing?"

Lafayette hummed in reply, not answering.

"He's dying your hair!" John called, from across the room where he was swaddled in his blanket despite him being fully prepared for the day ahead.

"What?!"

" _Non, non_ ," (No, no) Lafayette placated. "Just a quick braid. John is being ridiculous."

Alexander remained silent. If Lafayette _was_ dying his hair, well, so be it. His fingers in Alexander's hair were pleasant enough that Hamilton couldn't bring himself to care.

"MY turn!" John chirped suddenly. The mattress bounced slightly as he leapt upon it and Alexander groaned in complaint. Lafayette patted his head twice, consolingly, before turning to the smug virginian. Instead of pursuing Lafayette's hair-talents, Alexander flopped onto his back and sighed, long, and almost wearily. He wanted coffee.

Alexander sat back up and slid off the bed, stumbling over to his wardrobe and wiggling his feet into a pair of sneakers without bending down to pull up the tongues or push back the heels of the worn shoes. He stood on his toes to snatch his phone from its place on the top edge of his wardrobe and set about untangling the earbuds. He'd been hesitant in bringing the phone with him at first, afraid that the LeAiemses had put some sort of tracker on it aside from the "parental controls" they had insisted upon when giving it to him as a "pre-college" present. Eventually, Alexander had downloaded all of its files to his laptop and reset the whole thing to factory details.

"Where're you going?" John asked, his voice more a mumble than anything else.

"Coffee."

"No more than two espresso shots," Lafayette admonished at once. Alexander lazily flipped the frenchman off, resulting in most undignified snorts from Hercules and John. "I'm serious, Alexander."

" _Fine_ ," Hamilton grumbled. Lafayette adopted a smug expression.

"Get some for me!" Hercules called after Alexander, as the latter opened the door.

"What do you want?"

"I don't know. Something sweet."

Alexander made an exaggerated face of disgust but stepped outside, into the hallway. "You're reimbursing me!" he told Hercules before letting the door close.

The hallway's lights were brighter than Alexander remembered, though the single, wall-length window at the end of the hallway probably contributed to that. A couple other voices filtered into the space from other dorms, but Alexander ignored them and walked to the elevator, pressing the down button. After a while, the light above the doors lit up and the chrome walls slid open to reveal an elevator full of people. A majority of the teens inside walked out without acknowledging Alexander, talking animatedly amongst each other and gesticulating wildly. Alexander fumbled for his bright blue earbuds, putting them in and sweeping his recently-brushed hair behind his ears so that they were in plain sight. Hamilton really didn't feel like talking to anybody, at the moment.

He walked into the elevator and pressed the starred 'L', stepping back into the corner and withdrawing his phone to scroll through his music. At long last, he settled on some noise rap album. It was rare that he actually approved any rap-song's message- particularly the ones about drugs and sex, both of which types were bountiful- but the quick lyrics and distracting beats kept his mind busy and didn't let his thoughts wander.

The elevator lurched down but Alexander found it easy to ignore with the aid of the lyrics. It turned out that the album that he had chosen wasn't half-bad, and Hamilton found himself smiling at the occasional smart lyric or two. He probably looked weird as shit, grinning in the corner at seemingly nothing aside from the blue earbuds in his ears, but no one else in the elevator seemed like they were paying any attention to him.

The doors slid open and a glance at the LED display confirmed that he was at the lobby. Alexander stepped outside before the rush of people could buffet him along with them and pulled out his phone again. Google informed him that the milder campus café wasn't far from the Starbucks- which Alexander knew would be overrun by over-eager freshman- and was exactly where the pub had been in his last life. Alexander repressed a small smile and slipped his phone back into the pocket of his jeans, skirting the edges of the lobby and pushing open the glass door.

The campus thronged with people, though, because none were looking for immediate conversation, it provided a comforting medium in which to blend in to. Sun painted the tops of strategically planted trees and made both the more modern gray and the older red-brick buildings practically glow. Skirting the edges of the cement sidewalks and small courtyards, Alexander made his way to the coffee shop, finding the small brown building without issue and stepping into the homey place without pause.

Alexander was probably the shortest teen in the building. It appeared that a majority of the older students knew too well the habits of younger freshman concerning Starbuckses, as did Alexander, and had thusly chosen the milder coffee shop as well. Few spared him a second glance, though he could see annoyance flash across the faces of some. They probably thought he was invading their all but officially designated "freshman-free" space. Alexander repressed a sigh and tucked his earbuds into his pocket, stepping forward to order a black coffee for himself and one of the refrigerated Frappuccinos for Hercules. He could feel the eyes on him, judging him already. When Alexander tucked the Frappuccino in his pocket as best as he could and visibly kept the receipt, sipping the black coffee instead, the older students looked away. They seemed to have come to the correct conclusion that the Frappuccino was for a friend. Apparently, he had just needed to verify his more mature tastes, for they seemed to accept him.

The black coffee didn't taste the best, but it would serve its purpose well enough. Alexander pushed the door open, not lingering in the shop any longer than he needed to, and put his earbuds back in with one hand. The song that filled his ears wasn't nearly as tasteful as the one that had done so in the elevator, unfortunately.

The instant that Alexander re-entered the dorm, Hercules was upon him.

"You got the goods?" He said, in an theatrically low voice. Alexander suppressed a chuckle, nodding solemnly and handing Hercules his still-cold Frappuccino. The tailor unscrewed the lid, taking a sip and giving an exaggerated moan.

"You owe me," Alexander said, discarding the receipt into a nearby bin. He didn't actually care if Hercules reimbursed him for the exact cost. He had kept the receipt chiefly so that the older students would know that the Frappuccino was for someone else.

"Cool, man," said Hercules, taking a swig. "You want some?" He held it out to Alexander, who took a small sip and promptly made a face at the sweet flavor that spread over his tongue. It was hardly even coffee, more so a milkshake with the underlying hint of its supposed caffeine.

"More?"

"Blech. I'm good, thanks."

Hercules shrugged. "Whatever."

"Alex!"

Alexander looked over, both at the nickname and the voice, to see John. His hair was twisted up elaborately; he'd obviously given Lafayette free reign.

"Can I have some?" John asked, pointing at the half-empty coffee cup in Alexander's hand. After a brief period of mental deliberation, Alexander shrugged and handed it to him. John took a sip. His face screwed up.

"Urgh," he said, after a clearly forced swallow. "Nevermind."

"Hey!" Alexander defended his coffee choice. "At least it isn't Hercules' sugary crap."

"True," John sniggered, ignoring Hercules' fake gasp of outrage.

"However, _I'll_ partake in _that_ , my friends," Lafayette announced, sauntering over and plucking Hercules' coffee delicately out of his hands. He chugged nearly half the bottle.

"Dude!"

"Oops." Lafayette grinned unrepentantly.

"I fear someone may have to impress manners upon this french fry," Alexander said, his solemn air tinged with slight humor.

"Never!" Lafayette sniffed. "I am incorrigible, _merci beaucoup_." (Thank you very much.)

"That is... how you say," Hercules joked, "yet to be seen."

Lafayette laid a hand over his chest, mocking an expression of utmost offense. "How dare you infringe upon my delicate sensibilities!? You are bullying! I am being discriminated against for being a foreigner!"

Alexander snorted in amusement. "Lafayette, you're probably more American than half the kids at this school, in ideals if in nothing else."

"True," Lafayette conceded. "But I digress. You, dearest Alexander, have class in fifteen minutes."

"Shit," Alexander swore, hurrying over to his backpack and tossing two blank composition books into it. He unplugged his laptop and folded the cord, pushing the charger into the front pocket and the actual device into the second. "How do you know that?"

"You told me your classes, Alexander. I just have a better memory than you," Lafayette smirked.

"I never told you the times!"

"You also left your printed google-calendar schedule on the floor. I took a picture and put it back onto your desk." Lafayette pointed out and Alexander sighed. He stepped over to the desk.

"I am forced to reflect once more upon your ingenuity, my dear friend," Alexander said, dryly. He withdrew his phone to take a picture, swiping through the options and setting it as his lock screen.

"Many are," Lafayette said, smugly. John chuckled and Alexander looked over to see that he had just about taken out all the bobby pins in his hair, effectively destroying Lafayette's masterpiece, much to the frenchman's abject horror. "John!"

"Sorry, Laf," John smiled sheepishly and ran a brush through his hair a couple times. "You can do it later, or better yet, on Alex. I gotta go to class _now_. It starts in like," John glanced down at his watch, "five minutes. I can meet y'all at the courtyard outside the dorm after, though?"

Alexander glanced down at his screen, though it was in vain, for Lafayette immediately supplied: "All of us are free from eleven to one, _mon ami_." (my friend.)

"Excellent." John pulled out your phone. "Hold on, what's your number?"

Lafayette rattled off a number and Alexander fumbled for his own phone before he could forget it, quickly entering it under "french fry."

"Alex? What's yours?"

Alexander pulled up his settings and read it off.

"Great. I'll text you, and then you'll have my number, cool?"

"Yeah."

As if on cue- which Alexander supposed it technically was- Hamilton's phone chimed. He opened the message to see, in all caps, 'TAKE A SHOT!' Alexander snorted in amusement and saved the unknown number as 'designated shot-taker.' His phone chimed again and Alexander looked up with a raised eyebrow.

"Really, Hercules?"

"Hell yeah."

"'Fuck a horse for me'?"

"If you honestly think I won't take jokes from our last life and introduce it to this one, you're dead wrong."

Alexander snorted in amusement and saved the number as "tailor spy". He looked up to see that John had already left, and he sighed, chugging the rest of his coffee and dropping the empty cup into the garbage bin. "When's your class?" he asked Lafayette.

"It's not until ten."

Alexander groaned theatrically and slung his backpack over his shoulder. "have fun."

"I will. You as well."

"Yep. Bye, Hercules."

"Knock their socks- fuck it, knock their feet off."

Alexander snorted. "Good _bye_ , Hercules."

"Bye."

The campus remained relatively similar to how it had been when Alexander had ventured out to get coffee, differing only in sunlight. Now, instead of a certain slant of warm light painting across the tops of trees, direct sunlight lit the entirety of the campus. More people filled the space, too. A shoulder bumped into Alexander's own for the third time.

"Dude," Alexander said, turning to the person walking next to him. The guy had large black gages in his ears and a neon blue tank-top. "Can you cut it out!?"

The teen snorted, holding up his hands as if offended. "Whatever, dude." Alexander graced him with an expression of annoyance and walked towards the center of the crowd, shooting a group of teens who were blocking the entire passage a nasty glare. Only one seemed to notice, but she recoiled suitably and let Alexander pass without any comment. In the end, Alexander put his earbuds back in, blocking out the noisy drone of masses, and walked to the largest building.

In front of the modern gray building stood a large sign. Alexander glanced at it and then at his schedule to verify before walking inside. One flight of stairs up and three doors to left, a formidable door stood. The elegant plate next to it proclaimed: 'Lecture Hall 3: Governmental Economics.' Alexander pushed open the doors, his eyes darting towards the countless seats. The were only half-full, even though there was only about five minutes until the professor would apparently arrive. Then again, this wasn't a class of over-eager freshman, rather, a class of already-exhausted sophomores. Hamilton located a decent seat- three rows up, fifteen seats over- and walked up to it, his heart pounding in his ears despite the fact that not many had noticed that a freshman had entered their class yet. Maybe he shouldn't have applied for the advanced placement test.

Alexander banished the thought immediately. This college wasn't for comfort, it was for education and a head-start. That settled, he sat down, rifling through his composition books and withdrawing his laptop.

The door opened and a red-faced man in a dark blue polo entered. His broad shoulders swung slightly as he walked up to the center of the room and faced the class with a broad beam.

"Good morning," the man said. The class fell silent respectively. "Now, I know most of you already, though I look forwards to each and every one of you making a name for yourself not only in my mind but in the world. But that's beside the point. You are here to learn, so let's get right into it."

Class went well enough. Though there was the occasional bill or law Alexander was unfamiliar with, he found that he knew a majority of the material already. Of course, that was probably a side effect of creating the financial system in its entirety. After the second class, Alexander realized that the classes themselves seemed to blur together. Though the standard of education was definitely higher, the subjects seemed all too similar. Alexander stepped into the third lecture hall and settled in.

It wasn't until the near end that he caught a glimpse of- "Burr!?"

A majority of the students shot him glares, and Alexander winced in apology. Burr looked over startled. His hair was cut short and he looked a little uncomfortable in a dark blue jacket and slacks. " _What the fuck_?" Alexander mouthed at Burr, not sure what else to do. As if on cue, the professor's phone rang, and she turned off the alarm.

"I'll cover your paper later," she said. "For now, I'll leave you work-free, to the best of my ability. I will see you all- hopefully- on Thursday." Only a couple people moved. The professor rolled her eyes. "Fly, be free," she joked. "Shoo!"

As one, the class all fumbled for their binders and laptops and textbooks and notebooks and backpacks. Alexander dropped his own laptop into his bag, slinging it over his shoulder and practically running by the empty seats to get to Burr.

"Burr!"

".... Hello, Alexander."

Alexander laughed out loud and stood on his toes to throw his arms around Aaron Burr's neck. Aaron was, comfortingly enough, solid. The man tensed and Alexander, quickly remembering that Burr had never been a touchy-feely person, withdrew.

"Holy shit, Burr!"

"I'm not... what are you trying to convey?" Burr asked, confused. Alexander grinned at his friend's befuddlement.

"Just surprised to finally see you again. It's _weird_ , I gotta say, after so many years."

"The sentiment is shared," Burr chuckled. "I must ask, have you found anyone else? I sense that if you hadn't, the hug you've graced me with would have been far stronger, having not been diffused by multiple other recipients."

Alexander stared. "Did you.... develop a sense of humor?"

"No?"

"Oh my god, you did."

"If you say so."

Alexander laughed in relief. "Ease up a little, Burr. And yeah. I've found John, Hercules, and Lafayette. We're in the same dorm."

"John Adams?"

Alexander stared at Burr in abject horror. "No- _no_! Oh god. That would really suck. Jesus. Wow. Okay. I'm suddenly more grateful for my situation than I ever knew I could be."

The corner of Burr's lips twitched and the man seemed to relax a little. "I must say," the man told Alexander, as they began walking towards the lecture hall door. "I feel you have stolen all my luck. I'm with a metalhead and a druggie. The third guy's decent, though I think he's as annoyed by the others as I. I have also not had the fortune to meet any others yet."

" _Yet_ ," Alexander stressed, leading Burr down the staircase.

"...But I presume that I will be meeting your friends again shortly."

"Most correct."

They walked in silence for a few moments.

"I'm sorry," Burr said, suddenly. Alexander glanced over, confused.

"What for?"

"I did... you remember.... shoot you."

Alexander's chipper mentality disappeared. Had he not established that Burr was forgiven during their brief meeting in God's realm? Perhaps not.

"Burr, as I told you before, I understand. My past actions, all of which I commandeered myself, made for a presumption that I would shoot first. You wanted to defend yourself. We were both a little idiotic in even establishing a duel, and were thusly equally to blame, if not myself far more so. I died but you didn't win. I instilled a guilt that I can see the remnants of literally centuries later. But it wasn't your fault!"

"I stole from the world a whirlwind of a man, Alexander!" Burr burst out. A freshman walking past them shot the duo a weird look. then continued nonetheless. "That duel wasn't just between us; it was between me and America. I, foolishly enough, put _you_ on the line. You underestimate the worth of yourself, despite the values of narcissism that Jefferson and others have proclaimed you to hold. In short, Alexander, I stole from a young country- a young society- potential so great that it still overwhelms me."

Alexander was silent for a while and a quietude seemed to form even as they stepped into a courtyard and the din of the crowd immersed them. "You say it was between you and America? Well, I still put myself on the line. I reaped the consequences that I had established. It was a fair play, if an unfortunate one. You took the fall and the guilt of it."

Aaron didn't seem to concur completely but he didn't argue. For a second, Alexander wanted to demolish the awkward silence by putting in earbuds but quickly realized that the action would make the moment even more awkward for Burr. Soon, thank God, he spotted John.

"Laurens!" He called across the courtyard. John looked up and grinned, motioning to someone around the corner. Lafayette came into view. Neither seemed to have seen Burr yet.

Alexander grabbed Burr's forearm, ignoring the man’s resistance, and jogged over. Halfway to his friends, he could see Lafayette's and John's eyes widen as they noticed Burr at his side.

"Aaron motherfucking Burr!" John shouted. Alexander wondered briefly if he'd been anywhere near as tactful in greeting the man. John jogged forwards and stopped directly in front of a very uncomfortable-looking Burr. After a moment of silence, John stuck out his hand. "Nice to see you."

Still looking unsure as hell, Burr shook John's hand. "Likewise." Lafayette walked over and hugged Burr once. The embrace was more a quick squeeze than anything else but the frenchman shot Burr a genuine smile when he withdrew.

A startled squeak escaped Alexander as he felt large hands slide around his waist, lifting him into the air. Hercules chuckled behind him. Hamilton kicked a few times before stilling and scowling, knowing that he probably looked ridiculous as hell.

"Well _hello_ to you too, horse fucker," Alexander grumbled. A smile twitched at Burr's lips.

"Such a kind greeting!" Hercules mock-marveled. The tailor set down Alexander and walked over to Burr, embracing the startled man not unlike Lafayette had before him. "Hey, Burr. I was getting worried you'd gotten lost somewhere in Texas."

Burr chuckled, the slant of his eyebrows conveying worry despite his façade of geniality. "No such luck, I'm afraid. I- I spoke with Alexander earlier about our duel. Even so, I find it pertinent to inform you that I harbor both guilt and sorrow in relation to my past actions. In short, I was damn fool. I cannot express my regret enough."

Hercules studied Burr's face. "You really aren't letting this go, man. You know that Lafayette and I hated you for about a solid year? Then we actually stepped back to look at things. What you did was… the only possible thing, and you have been long since forgiven."

Burr didn't talk. Hercules slapped him over the cheek. Alexander nearly stepped forwards and both Lafayette and John gasped. Burr's head turned slightly to the side with the impact, yet he still didn't betray any expression.

"There," Hercules said. "You've had a physical consequence. That's your reimbursement. Just don’t fucking shoot Alexander again. Now listen and listen to me very carefully. Don't let your wishy-washy mentality interpret this. You. Are. Forgiven."

Burr appeared to physically relax a little.

"We cool?" Hercules asked.

"Cool," Burr replied, almost smiling. Hamilton had to marvel at the exchange for a few seconds. The action, in all its bluntness and simplicity, was all too intricate. So many foreseeable possibilities and even some unforeseen, and Hercules had somehow known how to guide the whole thing down the right path. Alexander, not sure what to do, pulled out his phone.

"What's your number?" he asked. Burr smiled a little at the abrupt subject change but dutifully rattled off his number, as if by memory- which it probably was. Alexander saved the number and sent Burr a text. Not a second later, Burr's phone chimed and the man glanced down at it. If he had been drinking any liquid, it would have been promptly spat out.

"'Journalism is dead and words have no meaning'?" Burr read, incredulous.

Alexander grinned. The crowd around him was growing suffocating, grounding him so that he couldn’t think. He had to thrust himself back of into a state of thought, and if he would do so with questionable social skills and the aid of Aaron Burr then so be it. "Interesting opinion you've stated. Let's debate."

Burr chuckled in disbelief. "You know, I actually have opinions now."

Alexander's jaw dropped, partially in jest and partially in actual surprise. "Great! Okay. State one. Now."

"Pertaining to what?"

"I don't know. Our current administration?"

"Unfit."

"Expand on it. They're incompetent. Our cabinet is a collection of rich, white, privileged, autocratic men who have no true political experience as they are chiefly television personalities and businessmen. That's not to say that we've had more than decent cabinets in the past. Unfortunately, right now, everyone is too interested in serving themselves, care little for America in all actuality, and turn a blind eye to nearly anything that isn't immediately attacking them or one of their rich, white, privileged supporters. They relegate the media to disastrous international issues and get annoyed when journalists try to actually cover what goes on their own cabinet and the discourse in our own country- which they then refuse to acknowledge the entirety of."

"Okay," Burr smiled. "I get the point. I agree almost completely."

"What don't you agree with?"

"As of late, they have been focusing more on international issues, though now it is much to the annoyance of the cabinet and president, as it is there that they have begun to run into issues."

"Agreed."

"I'm lost in this discussion," Hercules admitted. John laughed and slung an arm over his friend's shoulders.

"As am I, to be honest," Laurens smirked. "Y'all should be careful. I agree with the points I could understand, but some people are pretty violent and drastic in defense of their political views. I wouldn't want either of you to get beat up for a simple public conversation."

"I think Alexander could probably hold his own," Lafayette pointed out.

"Some people conceal carry, some have connections. Fights aren't straightforward anymore."

Alexander wilted slightly with a quiet, "Jesus."

"What is it?" Lafayette asked.

"Everything's so fucking _biased_ ," Alexander grumbled.

Lafayette put an arm around Alexander's shoulders, pulling him against his side and shooting him a sympathetic glance. Alexander leaned against the frenchman, grumbling unintelligibly in annoyance though he reveled in the solid warmth of his friend against his chest.

"What classes do you guys have?" Burr asked John, probably trying to break the silence that had immersed the group. The virginian paused for a second, cocked his head to the side, then grinned.

"I think I have calculus. Then I'm free. What about you?"

"I'm free now. If such a thing would be convenient for you, I would prefer to stick around one of you three. I would honestly rather do anything other than go back to my roommates."

"What's wrong with 'em?" Hercules asked, curious.

"One's a metalhead with a love for blasting music and the other's a stoner."

Hercules winced in sympathy while John whistled lowly.

"Can you request a room re-assignment?" Lafayette asked.

"I don't believe so. I know of others who are in arguably worse situations who have been denied such reassignments."

"I don't have any more classes, though the rest of my roommates have at least one more." Lafayette supplied. "Perhaps we could hang out in my dorm? Are you three okay with that?" The frenchman turned to Hercules and John, then glanced down at Alexander at his side.

Both Hercules and John voiced their assent while Alexander disentangled himself from Lafayette. "I'm cool with that," Alexander said. "Long as neither of you mess with my comp books."

"I won't," Burr assured Alexander, seeming relieved.

' _Here's to unexpectedly getting closer to Burr,_ ' Alexander thought to himself. Though maybe it wasn't so unexpected. Hamilton knew that finding any real friends would be significantly harder than it would be for anyone else. Being close friends and omitting the details of his reincarnation would simply be out of question, while on the other hand, no one that Alexander would trust to be close to him would have the mentality to simply accept something as seemingly nonsensical as a second life for a founding father. Alexander drew himself out of his mental slump before it could get any worse.

"At any rate, I gotta go to class now," Alexander said. John glanced down as his watch and sighed.

"I guess the same is true for me. Herc, you should go too."

Hercules nodded. "Bye, bitches." The tailor promptly began jogging towards the other end of the campus. His friends looked at his receding back with expressions of amusement.

"See you two later. Alexander, c'mon. You got calculus with me."

Hamilton sighed and waved goodbye to Burr and Lafayette, hiking the backpack straps up on his shoulders and walking away with John.

"It's weird seeing Burr again," Laurens marveled as they walked.

Hamilton grinned. "Tell me about it. I still find it surreal to see you and Hercules and Lafayette. It's like... two worlds merging, you understand?"

John sighed, jogging up cement steps and holding the door to the building open for Alexander, who ducked his head in thanks and stepped inside. "Yeah, I get you. It's gonna be weird as hell to see Jefferson and Madison in modern clothes."

Hamilton winced. "Oh god. Jefferson is a fucking fashion _explosion_ . I don't even want to know what that'll be conveyed as in modern-day dress. Madison'll probably wear way too many sweaters, though. Shitty immune system, y’know." Offhandedly, Alexander noted that he had adopted a more modern style of speech. ‘ _Merging of worlds and all that,’_ he supposed.

"Oh yeah. Madison's sweaters'll be a given. I should get Hercules or Lafayette to make a bet with me concerning that. Jefferson... he'll probably wear all those obnoxious zipper leggings and corduroy jeans and galaxy slacks- oh my god!" John snorted in amusement.

"What?" Alexander asked, curious.

"Alex, he might look like a fucking Tumblr nerd!"

Alexander understood the terminology perfectly and began to laugh. "Well," he gasped, motioning towards John's own clothes. "I thought you had that covered."

John shrugged. "Nah. I got the 'rebel without a cause' and 'all my posts are about me jokingly hating everyone and also I'm really tired' sections, just minus the heavy eye makeup. He'll probably have the 'okay seriously look at this cat shooting lazers out of its eyeballs' one. You know. The crazy satirical one. You have the 'I'm too tired for this shit' and 'I'm smol and I'm angry' and 'okay bitch you need to listen up' categories under control."

"If that doesn't describe me, though," Alexander said, solemnly. "What're Lafayette and Hercules?"

"Oh, Lafayette's just flat-out pastel," John supplied, at once.

"And Hercules?"

"I don't know, honestly."

"... Is there a 'dad friend who will do insane parkour and then tell his friends not to copy him because he's too protective and he knows it's dangerous' side of Tumblr?" Alexander wondered aloud, delighting in the laugh that escaped John.

"Well, if there is, that's Hercules."

Alexander smiled and opened the classroom door in front of them, following John through it and to the middle section of seats.

"And now," John joked, withdrawing a heavy textbook from his black backpack. "Let the learning commence."

"Urgh," Alexander mocked an expression of disgust and John chuckled.

Class began.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so this was mostly fluff but _no fucking regrets there_. 
> 
> PLEASE leave a comment! I love them. I print them out and tape them to my face. Just kidding. But please leave a comment.


	9. Popsicles

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I meant to post this yesterday but something came up. Long story short, that something was the Seattle Pride Parade. It was awesome. I have been bisexual as hell all day. Please enjoy this chapter.

The instant that class had ended, John had hardly spared the time for Alexander to slip his comp book and textbook back into his bag before he grabbed the smaller teen by the forearm and practically pulled him out of the classroom. "Freedom!" John crowed, probably scaring the other occupants of the building. Alexander laughed. Though John could be timid in his own right concerning opinion, he displayed no restraint whereas basic excitement was concerned.

"Is this the freedom you fought for in the war?" Alexander teased. John adopted a heroic pose, clapping his closed fist over his chest as a third-grader might salute the American flag during the school-wide morning recital of 'The Pledge of Allegiance.'

" _ Hell _ yeah. We got off easy, dude! I mean, I only have the placement essay for English Literature and a sketch."

"Sketch?"

"Oh, yeah. I'm... well, it sounds kinda ridiculous, I guess, in comparison to you and Lafayette. You both... well... yeah. I know it might seem a little pointless but hear me out-!"

"John," Alexander looked up at his friend with concern. "You've done so much for America already. I mean, for one, you dedicated your life to it. And it’s thanks to you that Charles Lee was removed from the battlefield. You wrote essays against slavery. Take a break. Do whatever the fuck you want to do." 

"Right. Okay,” John looked a little surprised at the vehemence with which Alexander spoke but he seemed grateful for it. “I want to... be an artist?" John's voice trailed off, questioning. Alexander smiled.

‘ _ Well thank fuck. It’s about time that he admitted it,’  _ Alexander thought, grinning internally. Out loud, the revolutionary said: "John! That's great! I saw some of your drawings from the past life and I gotta say, they were great. You know how important words are to me, right?"

"Yeah," John affirmed, apparently confused by the abrupt change of subject.

"Well, words are my medium. It's why I pursue politics. Graphite or paint or something else may be yours, but that doesn't make it any less important. What classes are you taking?"

John smiled. "Life drawing, anatomy-"

"Smart," interjected Alexander, before realizing that he was interrupting and backing off to allow John to continue.

"-and a class about technique art," John finished. “I mean, I have some of the core classes too, but the others are the ones that really contribute to a degree.” Alexander smiled and decided that offering a quick complement would probably be best.

"Those seem to compliment each other really well. What're the details about the sketch assignment?"

"The teacher just wants to know where we're at and what our strengths are," John informed. A smile curved John’s lips, making Alexander realize just how passionate John was about the matter. "He said that we should choose something that's always really challenged us. I've always really sucked with proportions and identifying highlights and shadows so I thought I'd make a drawing of a group of people."

"Who are you going to draw?"

John grinned. "Well... when the teacher asked, I told him that I'd be drawing the revolutionary squad, myself included."

Alexander laughed in surprise. "And thus it becomes even more obvious that we retain life from separate worlds and have no qualms blending said worlds!" Alexander declared!

"Yup," John grinned. "To be honest, I feel like it's harder to differentiate my mentality from each world than I had thought it would be."

"Anticipated," Alexander supplied at once, before silently cursing his unwitting interruption. John just inclined his head as if in thanks.

"Yeah. But... it wasn't just like putting my life on pause. It's like I'm almost a different person. Or at least, my... issues are more drastic. I’m trying to change, but I still have the same habits and all."

"I understand," Alexander sighed, feeling as if a physical weight had lifted off of his chest. ‘ _ Oh thank god. I’m not the only one with these doubts.’ _ "I thought I was alone in that. I think that everyone acquires issues throughout their lifetime, and the fact that we have lived so long without growing hazy as most elderly do probably contributes to our now far-more-prominent problems. Furthermore, you've seen how the media in this world refers to stress and anxiety in teens as if such issues are a given. It's not just 'as you grow up, you may notice physical maturities' anymore. It's a harder world to grow up in and excess of hormones in teenagers don't ease anything. Most middle-aged adults and parents won't acknowledge that life is simply harder for kids and young adults now and instead go on and on about how dramatic people going through such times are. The world is different. Then some of the teens that have grown up already act the same as those adults because they feel justified having lived through difficulties themselves, even though said difficulties are constantly changing so that the youngest adults can never quite hit the nail on the head with advice, nor empathy."

John nodded vigorously. " _ Yes _ ! Oh my god, I can’t stress that enough. So, you know- well, I guess you don't..."

Alexander shot John a questioning expression.

"I was reincarnated into a very... conservative-republican family. With a politically active father. In Virginia. It kinda sucks, but I- no offense I swear- don't have to deal with impoverishment or anything."

Alexander understood at once why John had been hesitant. During his first life, money had been a touchy issue for Alexander. Now, he found himself able to acknowledge the world around him to the extent that he knew that he couldn’t have done anything to affect the situation. "No, no, it's fine. I think that we are dealing with problems that we had in our last lives, only revamped and altered to fit this world. I mean, I grew up in the Nevis again, but the gap between the middle-class and the poor was far more prominent. I was unlucky enough to find myself classified as part of the latter." 

John squeezed Alexander's hand once, sympathetically. "I'm sorry. Jesus, I wish you could have grown up again under different circumstances."

Alexander shook his head. "It made me the way I am so I can't be mad at it, for a majority of that." Iffy phrasing again but Alexander knew John had understood him.

"Still," John said. "But this doesn't sound like a good conversation to have in the middle of a courtyard."

Alexander spared a glance around the quad and frowned. It was bustling with people that he’d forgotten were there. Luckily, they were only a short distance from the dorm.

Hands grabbed Alexander's waist and he was lifted into the air, not unlike how had been during last break. He yelped, startled, and gripped John's hand tighter, feeling like he was about to crash back onto the ground. John, after a brief moment of apparent alarm, look up at him and laughed.

"Hello, Hercules," Alexander grumbled, in mock-annoyance. Hercules laughed and set down Alexander.

"Yo. Lafayette says," Hercules withdrew his phone as if in explanation for his exchange with the frenchman, "that Burr didn't destroy anything, but I still think we should check up on him, yeah?"

"Yeah," John grinned. Alexander smiled and nodded as Hercules fell into step beside the two. "How was your class?"

Hercules grinned. "I got a decent professor, at any rate."

"What class was it?" Alexander asked.

"Okay," Hercules said, seeming a little bashful. "Don't laugh."

"I won't!" Alexander said, reminded of John's reaction to the question.

"It's... you guys remember how I complained about the fashion in our past life not having enough flexibility? The sizes were too rigid, the colors were way too predictable, no androgynous themes? Yeah, well, I'm changing that. It's a fashion design class. I think I legit might be the only dude in it, but it'll be worth it in the end."

Laurens high-fived Hercules. "That sounds really cool!" the Virginian enthused.

"Hell yeah," Alexander agreed. "Though at this rate, it seems like I'm the only person without an artistic talent."

"Can you play a musical instrument?" Hercules asked.

Alexander winced. "I tried piano once but it's not... blunt enough for me. Classical music is too whimsy for me. I like harsher sounds more but I prefer lyrics above all."

"So rap?" John guessed. Alexander shot him awkward finger-guns.

"Bingo. Noise-rap, specifically, though some of it’s weird as shit so I'd recommend you didn't look it up. What about you?"

"Eh, I like some of the faster-paced cultural music but I've never really been super into music. What about you, Herc?"

"Me? Melodic rap."

"Fitting," Alexander commented. "You know what Lafayette likes?"

"He played some French pop after you two left this morning," Hercules supplied.

"True Tumblr pastel, like I said," John laughed. Alexander grinned.

"What do you mean?" Hercules asked, falling into step beside Alexander.

"We determined earlier that Lafayette is the embodiment of the pastel side of Tumblr," Alexander tried to explain.

"Ah."

The three walked in silence for a little while. The back of Alexander's neck began to itch as the sun beat down on it. Uncomfortable, he pulled off his hoodie, swearing quietly when the hem got caught on his chin momentarily. He finished pulling it off and balled it up under his arm, rubbing his stubble ruefully. Shit. He needed to shave soon.

Hercules reached the lobby doors first and he held them open. John and Alexander stepped inside with murmurs of thanks, sighing at the blast of cool air that enveloped them, raising goosebumps.

"Oh, sweet air-conditioning, how I love you so!" Alexander declared quietly. A giggle too high to be from either of his friends sounded at his side and he very nearly froze. He glanced down. Eliza stood at his side, wearing a pair of bright shorts and a tank top; she was smiling and blushing, looking almost carefree. "Hey... Eliza, right?" he tried, his brain grating to a stop in its tracks. Eliza smiled and her face lit up, but Alexander’s mind was elsewhere. This wasn’t the Eliza that he remembered. He shot a panicked glance over her shoulder to see that both John and Hercules had frozen, looking unsure and a little scared themselves. Finally, Eliza spoke, seeming not to notice the pause nor the nervousness showing of Hamilton’s face. As a matter of fact, she seemed a little nervous herself.

"Hey, Alexander! Look, my sister wanted to know if you wanted to hang out with us later. We're going out to froyo. Our parent's gave us an illogically-high amount of money using a gift card so...?"

Alexander shifted awkwardly, remembering when that same voice, Eliza's voice, had said so many things in the past life. ' _ No, _ ' he thought at once, dismissing the memories. ' _ It'll be easier if I just accept this Eliza a completely individual person _ .'

"I dunno," he said, glancing over at John. Eliza seemed to wilt and Alexander rushed to bring a smile back to her face. "I mean, I have a couple of friends that I haven't seen in awhile. Well, I guess that to say 'a couple' would be an understatement. There are," Alexander took count mentally (he really shouldn't have had to), "four. I could cover their yogurt and maybe we all could just, I dunno, mingle?" Hamilton noted in the back of his mind that he had automatically slipped into a more informal method of speech when talking to Eliza.

"Yeah!" Eliza said, enthusiastically. Her face practically glowed in excitement. Alexander was strongly reminded of a different Eliza from so many years ago, one whose expression had been as optimistic, as unmarred as before. This Eliza's slate had been wiped clean, along with her memory.

' _ Stop it, Hamilton _ ," Alexander chided himself. ' _ You're a damn downer sometimes _ .' "Herc? John? You two think Burr and Lafayette would be good with that?" Alexander said. Hercules nodded. If Alexander looked closely, he realized, he could see that the tailor's eyes shone. Now that he took to liberty to remember, Alexander realized that Hercules and Eliza had been quite close in their own right, almost like siblings. John and Eliza, while good friends, had never had the same bond. Theirs had been more of a mutual respect and simple friendship. Nonetheless, John still looked saddened, and unsure.

"Yeah," John said, at last. "I think that they'd be up for it."

"Awesome!" Eliza grinned. "Okay, wait, erm, Alex- or Alexander, if you don't like 'Alex'-, do you have a phone number- or just a phone, I guess?" She colored a little red in embarrassment at her slightly confusing slip-up. Alexander smiled as if he hadn't noticed, trying to put the girl at ease.

Alexander recited his number carefully and Eliza whipped out her phone to type in the numbers. The back of her phone case was bedazzled with an American flag. Alexander resisted the urge to make another reference to the revolutionary war in the hope that it would trigger her past memories, knowing that to do so would be in vain. The Eliza he had known wouldn't have held back her knowledge of the past; she could be recklessly optimistic in her own right.

"Okaaay, hold on," Eliza said, typing. A characteristic 'swoop' noise announced that she had sent a text. Alexander's phone dinged.

"Okay," he said, withdrawing his phone. He smiled at the smiley-face Eliza had sent as he saved the number despite the fact that he wanted nothing more than to seat himself in front of an episode of  _ House of Cards  _ with a pint of fudge-and-caramel ice-cream and cry. "Great! We can meet you back here... when would be convenient for you?"

Eliza shrugged, "Maybe like, a half-hour? But if you need more time, just let me know!"

"Nah," Alexander waved his hand. "It'll probably be fine. If not, well, I have your number and can tell you."

"Alright," she said, smiling. Alexander smiled back.

"Alright."

Eliza's smile got a little wider and she tucked her phone back into the pocket of her shorts. "See you soon!" she said, walking off. Alexander smiled after her until he was sure that she wouldn't look back at him.

"Believe me now!?" he hissed at his friends. Hercules held his hands.

"We believed you before. Just... wow. That's really her, huh? Jesus. It's hard to comprehend that she doesn't remember.... anything. Wow. Okay. Shit. Damn. No wonder that hit you so hard."

John remained quiet.

"John?" said Alexander, a little anxious.

"I'm fine, I'm fine. Wow. What Hercules said, I guess. That's... she was your  _ wife _ !"

"I’m aware, John!"

"You-" John cut himself off. "Nevermind. Not appropriate."

Alexander laughed faintly, not sure what else to do. Tears pricked at his eyes but he rubbed them with the heels of his hands. ' _ I don't have time for this _ ,' he thought, heatedly.

"We'd better go find Burr and Lafayette and... let them know," John said, still seeming a little shell-shocked.

"Yeah," Alexander said quietly. Hercules lead the way to the elevator pressing the up button. The chrome doors slid open to admit the three, and the two previous occupants walked out without sparing them a glance. "I'm sorry," Alexander said, after the doors had slid shut.

"What for?" John shot Alexander a confused look.

"Well, I probably just... I don't know how to phrase it," Alexander confessed. "Point is, I couldn't say no."

John shook his head vigorously and laid his hand on Alexander's shoulders. "No, it's fine. Don't worry about it, really." Alexander, though he retained his doubts (' _ that doesn't change the fact that I simply couldn't say no, _ ') he didn't refute John's words. " _ Really _ ," John stressed. Alexander sighed, trying to distract himself from the feat of weakness.

"Okay. Yeah. Alright," He said. The elevator doors slid open and the three incarnates stepped out into the hall.

 

~~~~

 

“You’re joking,” Lafayette said. Burr was mute. “You’re fucking joking.”

“I’m  _ not _ fucking joking,” Alexander said. Though he had meant it to sound fiery, it came out almost soft. “I’m not,” he maintained. The room was silent for a few moments before Alexander allowed his head to drop into his hands with a groan. Nervousness, sadness, and some unidentifiable emotion flooded him. “ _ Shit _ .”

“No kidding,” Hercules eventually said. Burr opened his mouth as if wanting to say something but didn’t speak. Burr’s mouth closed. Though he seemed unsure, John took charge of the situation.

“Right. Let’s think this through,” Laurens said. “Not going isn’t an option. I don’t think, at least. We can’t just… ditch her. That isn’t. Okay, I know that there’s a bigger picture but that just isn’t something that we can do in any good conscience and I mean, she  _ is _ Eliza, just not the one that we’re used to-”

“I know,” Alexander cut in, not wanting to throw himself into that mental loop again. “I think we know.”

“Okay. We have about twenty more minutes until we should be down there. Let’s just….” John paused, then slumped. “Okay, I don’t know what to do.”

Alexander resisted the urge to groan in annoyance.

“I think we must just.... go with it,  _ oui _ ?” (yes?) Lafayette eventually said. Burr nodded, looking almost relieved. Maybe that’s what he had wanted to say earlier, Alexander thought. Wordlessly, Alexander got up and walked over to his bed. He undid the hair-tie holding his hair in a loose bun and ran a brush through it.

“I’m ready when you all are,” he said, quiet. ‘ _ I’m just going to hope for the best. _ ’

The small group that had gathered dispersed without a sound.

Alexander surveyed his friends, watching as they readied themselves. Hercules did nothing more than straighten the beanie on his head before seating himself on his mattress, looking as nervous as Alexander felt. Lafayette wiped slightly tinted lipstick off of his lips (Alexander hadn’t noticed it before). John pulled off his shirt, presumably to change, and Hamilton averted his eyes politely. Burr sat awkwardly next to Mulligan.

It seemed as if a storm of butterflies were welling in Alexander’s gut. His throat felt tight and his chest constricted, though the sensations were nothing urgent. He exhaled a shaky breath, rolled his shoulders, and just about jumped off the mattress when he felt fingers in his hair.

“ _ Je suis  _ _ désolé, _ ” (French: I'm sorry) Lafayette said, his face not betraying any emotion. The scholar nodded in acknowledgement and forgiveness, careful not to move so that his hair was tugged as he scooted back on the mattress a little. 

Alexander felt his eyes slide shut as Lafayette’s fingers carded through his hair. The frenchman seemed content not to braid, simply sectioning certain strands and winding them around each other. After each long twist was completed, Lafayette released the hair, letting it undo itself before starting on the next twist. Alexander let his head fall back and his mouth opened slightly. The agitation that had previously flooded him seemed to seep away at the simple physical distraction.

“Thanks,” he murmured, hardly moving his lips.

“Not a problem, my friend,” Lafayette replied.

Eventually, Lafayette retreated, sprawling on his own mattress and fixing his gaze on the ceiling. Hamilton, feeling almost groggy, glanced over. He wondered what he could do to help, knowing that the frenchman was probably feeling the same agitation that he had not minutes before.

“ _ Comment  _ _ ça va _ ?” (French: how are you?) Alexander asked.

“ _ Je suis nerveux, _ ” (French: I am nervous) Lafayette confessed.

“ _ Puis-je vous aider _ ?” (French: Can I help you?)

Lafayette rolled on his side and made grabby hands jokingly. “ _ Câline moi. _ ” (Cuddle me.)

Alexander made a show of standing up. “As you wish, oh cruel general.” He flopped ungainly onto Lafayette’s mattress, right behind him. He squirmed so that he could cradle Lafayette’s head. “ _ Satisfaisant _ ?“ (French: Satisfactory?)

“ _ Oui _ .” (French: Yes.)

“I feel excluded,” John announced, from across the room.

“ _ Preferirías hablar en español? _ ” (Spanish: would you rather I speak in spanish?) Alexander joked.

“ _ Sí _ ,” (Spanish: yes) John replied, grinning.

“Now I’m excluded!” Lafayette lamented, teasing.

“Meanwhile,” Hercules said, shooting all his roommates a raised eyebrow, “I don’t understand a lick of what any of you said.”

“You were a spy, Herc!” John declared. “You should at least know the basics!”

Hercules grinned. “England wasn’t exactly an accepting place when it came other cultures. I didn’t learn jack squat when I was stationed there.”

“One moment,” Burr said, sounding stunned. “You actually were a spy?”

Hercules laughed. “Yeah, I was. I thought that you knew.”

“No,” Burr said, eyebrows raised. “I didn’t-” 

A loud alarm sounded from John’s phone, cutting off Burr. John swore and fumbled for it, silencing it at once. There was resounding silence for a few moments. “Showtime,” John said.

 

The instant that the elevator doors dinged open, Alexander stepped out. He didn’t want to hesitate for fear that more unsurity would strike him. His friends followed him, Burr seeming almost timid. Alexander caught sight of the Schuyler sisters at once. Peggy noticed him first.

“Hello, Alexander Hamilton,” she smiled. 

“Hello, Peggy.” It wasn’t hard to smile. Alexander did his best to forget his worries.  _ ‘Perhaps acting in character will fool myself,’  _ Hamilton hoped. “Hey, Angelica, Eliza.” He realized that the two sisters were waiting patiently likely for- “Oh! This is John,” Alexander motioned at the southerner, who lifted his hand and nodded with a smile, “Hercules, Bu- Aaron, and Lafayette.”

“ _ Salut _ !” (French: Hello!) The frenchman grinned.

“Lafayette?” asked Eliza.

“Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette,” Lafayette said, a smile twitching at his lips. “But Alexander tells me that ‘Lafayette’ is easier to remember.”

“No kidding.” Angelica’s eyebrows had shot up on her forehead. Eliza laughed and stuck out her hand. 

“My name’s just Elizabeth. Call me Eliza?”

“That I will,” said Lafayette, then turning to face Eliza’s oldest sister.

“I’m Angelica.”

“And Peggy!” Peggy jumped in. Alexander laughed softly. Lafayette nodded somberly.

“Indeed you are.”

Burr nodded his head awkwardly, seemingly not sure what to do, and Alexander quickly realized that Aaron and himself weren’t the only two feeling the hesitant air that Lafayette was apparently trying to abolish. “Anyway,” Hamilton jumped in, trying his damndest to be suave. “Eliza, might you lead the way to froyo?”

Elizabeth suppressed a giggle, exclaiming, “I do believe I will.” Angelica threw an arm over Eliza’s shoulder. 

“Oh, don’t mind me!” Peggy joked, acting offended that Angelica hadn’t slung an arm around her own shoulders. When Angelica only rolled her eyes, Peggy began to sing. “Looonllyyyy!”

Lafayette joined her for the next line, the frenchman making it a point to shoot Alexander a pouty-face. “I’m so loonllyyy!”

“Wha’d I do?” Alexander asked, a smile twitching at his lips. It was kind of funny how similar Lafayette and Peggy were.

“You abandoned me, Alexander,  _ mon cheri, mon amour _ !” (French: my darling, my love!) Lafayette lamented, melodramatically.

“How so?”

Lafayette cocked his head to the side. “...I suppose you didn’t. Hercules, you abandoned me.”

“Did I?” The tailor grinned.

“ _ Oui _ . In my most dire time of need.” (French: yes)

Alexander was suddenly reminded of the fight between the French and the English after the revolution, and of how his influence made for the eventual lack of aid for the French from America. He swallowed with a dry throat and jogged forward a bit to bump Lafayette with his shoulder, affecting nonchalance.

“Chill, Lafayette. Remember, at least Burr never abandoned you.”

Lafayette gasped and whirled around. Still walking backwards, he theatrically extended his arm towards Burr. “Oh, Burr! Aaron! You have stayed loyal! My friend!”

Burr chuckled, though he still seemed a little awkward.

“More loyal than America to Britain, at least,” John joked. Alexander rolled his eyes.

“That isn’t a difficult feat, Laurens,” Lafayette pointed out. John groaned theatrically.

“That was the  _ point _ .”

“And that’s the froyo,” Angelica cut in, gesturing at a small building next to the campus Starbucks. It was just about swarming with students. An idea stuck Alexander and he withdrew his phone, typing into google maps and praying for better wifi.

“And that,” he said at what felt like long last, poking a location on the screen. “Is a gas station with a 7-Eleven. Let’s get some crappy ice-cream there.” His suggestion was met with approval and they kept walking.

After some fairly easy banter, they reached the place. Angelica pulled open the door and audible sighs escaped from Eliza and Hercules as a wave of cool air washed over all of them. 

“This,” Eliza laughed, “is nice.” Alexander grinned.

“Yeah,” he replied. They made their way to the freezers in the back and Hercules opened the door so that Alexander could grab two boxes of popsicles. 

“Good?” John asked everyone, motioning to Alexander’s choice. 

“Oh, cool, you got the trivia ones!” Everyone stared at Hercules, who promptly laid a hand over his chest as if in offence. “I’m allowed to be a child.” The group chuckled and they walked to the register. The cashier fixed them with a tired glare. Alexander wordlessly passed over a ten dollar bill and the cashier scanned their ice cream, then pressed a couple of buttons. The cash register slid open and a receipt printed.

“Your change is eight dollars, four cents,” the cashier said, monotonously. “Have a good day.” Alexander inclined his head in a way that he hoped was polite and they left. Once outside, a heat wave smacked them in the face. Alexander coughed.

“Here, Herc.” Hamilton passed the spy the plastic grocery bag, still trying to accustom himself to the sun beating down on him once more.

“Sweet.” Hercules grinned and tore into the flimsy cardboard of the first box. 

He passed a popsicle to Peggy first, who graced him with a respectful: “Hell yes.” 

“Where’re we going?” Angelica asked. John shrugged. 

“We could go to our dorm?” Lafayette suggested. “I mean, it will be quite cramped, but it’s pretty close to here.”

“Closer than our’s, I guess,” Angelica grinned. Alexander realized all at once that the Schuylers didn’t actually share their dorm. What had Eliza been doing in the lobby? After puzzling over it for a couple of seconds Alexander dropped the subject, deciding it wasn’t important. Hercules opened the second box of popsicles and Alexander finally got one. As they entered the quad, he unwrapped it and promptly bit into it. It was a decision that he regretted at once. His teeth felt like they were being frozen by dry ice and the enamel had been ripped off.

“Fuck!” He swore, his mouth aching. Eyes a little watery, he dropped the popsicle. “Fuck fuck  _ fuck _ !” John looked over and saw Alexander rubbing his lips, trying to soothe his aching teeth. With a glance at the broken popsicle on the ground, John seemed to have surmised what had happened. The southerner crouched to retrieve the popsicle stick with a grin. A few pieces of the frozen treat still clung to baltic wood, though a majority had broken off and now lay on the walkway, dirt marring its probably chemically colored surface.

“Never waste a popsicle, Alexander,” John joked. Alexander rolled his eyes and took the stick from John, shaking off the remaining popsicle with a sharp flick of his wrist. He turned it over to take a look at the trivia.

“‘Margarita means ‘daisy’ in Spanish,’” he read aloud. Peggy glanced over and Alexander laughed.

“Who would have thought you’d actually be named after a flower?” he joked to Peggy. Peggy’s eyes widened. 

Instead of addressing him, she patted her pockets as if she had forgot something. “Ah, crap! Guys, I think I dropped the note I wrote down my math homework on!”

Eliza glanced over, concerned. “I can see if I can find someone else who-”

“Nah,” Peggy cut her sister off, shooting the girl an appreciative expression nonetheless. “I think I remember setting it down over in the courtyard.” She walked towards the door before pausing. “Wait.” She grabbed Alexander’s forearm. “I need you to show me where you dorm is, cool?” She didn’t give Hamilton the chance to reply. “Cool. See you guys soon!”

The others waved and Peggy led Alexander out the door. Without a word, she pulled him over to the end of the line of buildings. 

“Peggy?” Alexander asked, confused. She pushed him against the wall and stepped back, her eyes narrowed but worried.

“You remember your last life,” Peggy said, “don’t you.”

It wasn’t a question.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ......... hehe....... cliffhanger.


	10. Communication

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Consistency? Updating schedule??? Never heard of her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, ah, _here's_ a rad concept; what if this chapter _wasn't_ two months late? 
> 
> Okay, okay, really, I'm sorry. I had a lot of shit going on in addition to an incredibly severe writer's block.
> 
> So... don't kill me?
> 
> Anyway, here's the chapter:
> 
> (possible trigger warnings: discussion of religion)

“I-” Alexander was- and he couldn’t believe it- _stuttering_. Was Peggy just taking a wild guess? Had she heard someone else talking about it? Was she just trying to throw him for a loop? Could she actually- Alexander felt as if his heart was thudding unnaturally loudly- remember?

“Why?” he asked. The question burst out as defensive and he wilted slightly. He really could have worded that better.

Peggy laughed incredulously. “Why? WHY?! Maybe because I only know because you inexplicably knew my full first name??!”

‘ _Shit, she’s angry_.’

“Maybe because I’ve spent nearly the last two _decades_ trying to find some kind of hope!? But of course, you probably knew _just_ what was going on! Me!? I woke up in an unfamiliar house with parents I didn’t know and siblings who thought that I was playing pretend when I asked them about times that I thought were only days prior! I re-started my life with no explanation and no fucking hope and here you are, not even throwing me a bone to make sure that I _really_ don’t know a thing!”

“I did!” Alexander insisted. “I really did! I did so many times! Were the references to Thomas Jefferson not enough? The references to the _war_ not enough!?”

“No! No they fucking weren’t!” Peggy seemed incredulous. “Are you _joking_!? Of course they weren’t enough! I hinted the same to Maria when I found her-”

“What? Maria!?” Alexander felt as if a bolt of pain had been slung through his body. His heart thudded. Past mistakes were so much closer than he’d realized.

“Yes, asshole! Maria fucking Reynolds! I hated her last time around, don’t get me wrong, but she didn’t deserve it! When I saw her and I wanted to tell her and cry because _thank fucking god_ , I’m not alone, and she thought that I was pranking her! No, asshole, that wasn’t enough. Risk a little more. You don’t know who’s hurting so do your best to fix what you can’t see, dammit!”

“I’m sorry!” Alexander burst. There were tears in Peggy’s eyes and they were unwarranted. Due to another of his mistakes. Looking back, he could see other choices, choices that made so much more sense. He could have asked and risked nothing more than the sisters thinking him a bit off in the head. And he could have alleviated Peggy’s hurt. Even when he tried to fix mistakes, so many more came to head that he felt disgusted in himself. “I’m sorry. I- I understand that to say that ‘if I’d known’ would be thoughtless. I could have- I could have done better. I’m sorry.” Peggy’s anger seemed to be disappearing but Alexander felt as though he hadn’t said enough. “I’m so sorry. Jesus, it was self-absorbed to an extent that even the thought leaves a bad taste in my mouth and I should have been far more conscious. If there is anything, ever, that can reconcile this- even to only a small measure- I would be more than willing-”

“Hamilton,” Peggy cut in. “We both screwed up. Okay? That was a little hypocritical.” She looked sorry, though Alexander didn’t understand completely why. “I meant you to pick up little hints. I wasn’t thinking. People aren’t as perceptive as they are in my mind, do you know what I’m saying?”

Alexander nodded, a feeling of relief washing over him. That was something he understood. “Yes, oh god, _yes_.” They stood in silence. Alexander became aware of the bustling of the students not too far to their left. They probably looked pretty suspicious, secluded behind a building. Peggy sighed, her eyebrows drawn together in frustration.

“What?” Alexander asked.

“What the hell were we even arguing about?”

Alexander realized that their argument had really had no intent. He chuckled. “Nothing, I guess. Just… diffusion of long-since accumulated tension?”

Peggy nodded. “Okay. Yeah. Let’s… start over a little bit?”

Alexander smiled. “Yes. Er… perhaps we might reconvene with everyone else? I should let you know now that Burr and Laurens and Lafayette and Mulligan… they all know. They remember. And Jefferson and Madison are somewhere.”

“Wow. I guess we aren’t alone. At all. That’s a fucking relief.”

Though they had mended tensions, Alexander got the feeling that the both of them still felt a little awkward despite their personal efforts. They didn’t talk much as they neared the lobby and might’ve during the elevator ride up to Alexander’s dorm, if not for the couple making out against one wall. Alexander cleared his throat. The couple ignored him. Peggy sent a near hysterical glance at him, clearly holding back her laughter. The doors dinged and Alexander stepped out with Peggy at his heels.

“My God,” Peggy eventually snorted. Alexander grinned in response and led her to their dorm, raising a fist to knock. He knocked. The sound was unnaturally loud and he could hear the voices inside of the room pause. John pulled the door open with a relieved smile.

“Yo, Alex!”

“Hey,” he replied. John pulled the door wide open and Peggy stepped inside with a nod, Alexander following her. He was hit in the face with a pair of socks almost immediately and began to splutter. “Was that really necessary, Lafayette?!”

“ _Oui, mon ami,_ ” (French: yes, my friend) the Frenchman smiled. “Join us?” Alexander nodded. As he made his way over, he began to think of ways he could alert the others of Peggy’s memory. Sure, he didn’t have to immediately, but he thought that they would all appreciate feeling a little less lonesome. In the end, he ended up exercising the little patience he had and playing Uno with everyone else. The game was pleasantly mindless, though it didn’t completely eradicate the traces of anticipation and leftover worry from his mind.

At long last, Eliza glanced at her phone and just about jumped to her feet. “My roommate locked herself out and the RA is busy. I’ll just run over really quick?”

Alexander nodded and opened his mouth, though John said, “Yeah, okay,” before he could say anything himself.

“I’ll go with,” Angelica said. “Peggy?”

“Nah, I gotta beat Alex,” Peggy grinned and clapped Alexander on the arm for emphasis. “I have three good cards in my repertoire and they aren't going to waste.”

Angelica smiled. “Okay. Text me in ten minutes?”

Peggy rolled her eyes and groaned exaggeratedly. “ _Yes_ , mother.”

John and Lafayette both chuckled while Alexander smiled a little. Angelica held up her hands and backed away. “Whatever. Ten minutes.”

As Alexander watched Angelica and Eliza leave, Alexander felt his mouth get dry. He cast a glance around him, at Hercules, John, Lafayette, and Burr. They were all smiling- or, in the case of the last to be listed, seeming generally amused. It was odd, Alexander mused, to think that this was them before a figurative hurricane hit. Everything seemed to have an eerie innocence to it when further knowledge is not yet permitted to the viewer.

The door closing behind Angelica and Eliza broke Alexander out of his reverie. He knew without looking to his left that Peggy had cast a glance at him- perhaps attempted to meet his gaze. Not deliberating, he opened his mouth and blurted out: “So Peggy remembers.”

The room was silent, much like it had been before. For a second, Alexander wondered if he had even spoken aloud. He glanced up, not sure of when he had fixed his gaze on the ground, and met the stunned eyes of John. Beside him, Peggy lifted her hand awkwardly, settling on a quiet, “Yeah…”  
   

“What…?” Hercules looked alarmed, unsure. On edge. The appearance struck some chord in Alexander, reminded him too much of the atmosphere of the war, and he took careful liberty to dismiss all the worries that at once arose. Thank God, Peggy took it upon herself to explain further, as Alexander wasn’t sure he himself could have managed another word.

“I remember everything from the last time I was alive. Alexander told me that you all did-”

“You remember!?” John cut her off with wide eyes. Alexander deliberated mentally for a couple moments over whether or not he should make a joke about Laurens’ reaction. The situation wasn’t appropriate, he decided.

“I remember,” Peggy replied evenly.

There was a couple seconds of silence- it appeared as if Alexander wasn’t the only person who hadn’t a clue what to say or do in response- and then Lafayette began to cry, lowering his face into his hands. At the sound of the first sob, Alexander looked over in alarm.

“Lafayette?” Hercules asked cautiously, laying a hand on the frenchman’s shoulder and looking relieved when it wasn’t rejected at once. “Are you okay?”

Lafayette made an odd half-choking-half-groaning sound and nodded. “ _Oui. Désolé._ ” (French: Yes. Sorry.) He rubbed at his eyes, appearing a little frustrated. “There is nothing, ah, the matter. I’m as confused as you.”

“Just,” Alexander tried, “a little overwhelmed? Too much in too little time?”

“Yes,” Lafayette sighed, pulling the corner of his sweater over his thumb and wiping away a tear. “Too much in too little time.” He laughed softly and no one asked why. Lafayette looked up and grinned ruefully. “I’m really glad to see you again. You. The you that remembers.” He shifted awkwardly and held out his arms. “Could I hug you?”

Peggy laughed and leaned forward, letting Lafayette hug her tightly as she smiled into his shoulder. When at last the frenchman drew away, Hercules held out his arms with a sheepish smile. Peggy stood up and stretched, holding out her hand to him and pretending to take the brunt of his weight as he too got to his feet.

“Now you can hug me.” She smiled and Hercules wrapped his arms around her at once with enthusiasm that rivalled Lafayette’s. Discreetly, the spy tried to wipe away a couple tears. No one made a point of noticing. As Hercules stepped away, John stood up and embraced her too, neither of them exchanging words.

“How’ve you been?” Hercules asked, once John stepped away. Peggy winced then laughed bitterly. She thought for a moment.

“Honestly, not the greatest. I thought that I was completely alone in the world. Where were the people who remembered? But- okay, I’ll admit, it’s weird seeing all of you guys. And knowing you remember.”

“Like merging worlds?” John prompted, shooting a sideways glance at Alexander, likely to see if he recognized the reference to their earlier conversation. “Just, the whole merging part isn’t going well, so some things just don’t fit and don’t… seem right?”

“Yeah.”

“I must confess,” Burr finally spoke, “that I believe myself to be subject to that same issue.”

Deciding against taking credit for the expression John had used (‘ _dammit, Alexander, they already know you’re smart; you don’t need to prove anything’_ ), Alexander simply voiced with a raised hand a quiet: “Same.”

Peggy glanced around. “I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that everyone here feels that way?” she asked. There were quiet murmurs of confirmation from both Hercules and Lafayette and John nodded awkwardly.

“Ah, perhaps it is a casualty of reincarnation,” Lafayette joked.

“Reincarnation?” Peggy asked. “That’s the name for this?”

Suddenly, Alexander had the overwhelming urge to punch himself in the face. Of course. Of fucking course. Peggy had earlier voiced her explicit confusion. She didn’t know why she had been given a second life, though, in fairness, neither did Alexander. But all inherent argument aside, Alexander realized that it was suddenly quite possible she had never been given _any_ explanation. Before he could speak, John replied with something that likely sounded very odd to any individual who didn’t know the whole story.

“Yeah, I mean, that’s what God said. He also called it the goodness of his heart and an overused TV trope.” John ticked off the two other “names” on his fingers as he said them. Alexander wanted to tease John for having remembered everything but could only suppress a guilty expression as he realized that he had done the same. Then again, his life had literally hinged on the information.

“God!?”

This seemed oddly like a scene of absolute deja vu.

“So you didn’t,” Lafayette looked a little uncomfortable as he said it, “meet with him?”

“No. Yeah. No. You can safely, ah, assume that I haven’t,” Peggy said with wide eyes. “Are saying that you…?”

No one spoke and everyone sans Peggy cast glances at each other, as if wanting another to answer the girl. Eventually, Alexander took initiative. “Yes. Yeah, we did,” he said, remarkably not stuttering once. “He, uh…” ‘ _dammit,’_ Alex thought. He really should have thought this one through. “Er, John? You want to…?” He conceded the figurative floor to John.

“Yeah. Peggy. Do you know why you were… given a second chance?” Peggy opened her mouth. “Wait, no,” John said, rushing. “Don’t answer that. I’m on a roll of some sort. Yeah. So when we died, we ended up… not quite in Heaven. I mean, it was in no way Hell! It was like a middle stage that I think most people bypass when they die. It was like a waiting room, you know what I mean? Big white room and absolutely nothing to do. I was the second to end up there. Alex’s mom was the first. Washington was the third and ah… Philip was the fourth.” Hercules glanced at Alexander, who was careful not to let his face fall visibly as he was reminded.

‘ _God_ ,’ Alexander thought, biting his lip. ‘ _I miss him._ ’ It’d been so long since he had seen Philip. Or Washington. Wow. The sudden remembrance that he wouldn’t see Washington again until he died came crashing over Alexander. He really hadn’t accepted that. It was too much to think about, at the moment. Alexander did his best to dismiss the thoughts and focused on John.

“After that was Alex, then Lafayette and Hercules, then Jefferson and Madison and,” John gestured, “Burr. Anyway, God was there. Ah, he actually looked like a teen. Not the depiction all Christians and a good many others seem to insist on. He had brown hair- mine looks a bit like it- and… and a Seahawks hoodie. And jeans. You remember Benjamin? Franklin? The god - or rather, his own belief in God - that he once discussed with Lafayette when his grandson-”

“Temple,” Lafayette supplied. “His name was Temple.”

John nodded in thanks and continued: “Yes, when Temple studied with him? Basically, God isn’t too worried about what humanity thinks of him. Yes, he created us. He takes pride in us. But us worshipping him? He couldn’t care less about that. He wants us to help, to build our world. Kinda... “ John laughs, “you know the Sims?”

Peggy nodded.

“Yeah,” John smiled. “It’s like… he’s the player, the person controlling the game, and he doesn’t want us to break the fourth wall. Of course, he has to let us develop by ourselves, so we sort of change the character settings over time until we settle of a final stage of self. Are you still following me?”

Everyone voiced their quiet affirmation. ‘ _John’s really put some thought into this,_ ’ Alexander noted.

“Anyway, from what I learned with talking with God, we kinda drive him crazy. He’s a perfectionist, in a way, but not one that destructs what isn’t perfect. He tries to escort perfection to the centerstage, but he never forces it. But he does see infinitesimal issues. Some he thinks are too nice, others too rude, some to thoughtful, some just not right. Too much or too little something; no realistic balance struck.”

‘ _Which is funny,_ ’ Alexander thought, ‘ _since the reality that he finds unrealistic is the definition of the word._ ’ He didn’t cut in with the thought and allowed John to continue.

“He doesn’t normally directly interact with us - he allows us to play out our own story; we were a rare exception. He liked how we played the story and I guess he wanted us to do it again. So, when we showed up, he told us that. Washington… Washington and Alexander’s mom didn’t want a second chance. Philip did - I’m so glad that he did - want a second chance. But he’s going to have to wait. God promised he’d let us have Philip, that he’d put Philip into this world, but not for a while.”

Alexander stared at the crappy carpeting of the floor and tried hard to tune out John. He already knew this anyway. It was just reminding him of things he wasn’t quite ready to remember. He succeeded for a short while, until Lafayette startled him out of his state of distraction by scooting over to him and wrapping an arm around his waist. At first, the action confused Alexander. Was Lafayette attempting to comfort him? Had John been speaking of something Alexander generally wouldn’t tolerate hearing about?

“-and, ah, Washington stayed. I- Lafayette? Did you try to convince him to join us?”

‘ _Ah,_ ’ Alexander realized. Lafayette needed comfort; he wasn’t offering it. He’d always been a bit more sensitive in matters concerning General Washington. Alexander squeezed the Frenchman’s hand gently as Lafayette appeared to steel himself, replying: “No. I did not - do not - think a legion could have changed his mind.”

John shrugged but didn’t argue. He continued with his explanation, detailing how Burr had shown up- here he cast the man a careful glance and received a nod- and how he had been forgiven. “Didn’t stop him from apologizing again later, though,” he commented ruefully. Alexander hesitated to say anything and was relieved to see Burr smile in what appeared to be humor.

‘ _How the hell does communication even work?_ ’ Alexander wondered. Earlier, Hercules had slapped Burr. Now, John had said something Alexander would have found offensive, were he in Burr’s shoes. And yet, Burr seemed to find the actions almost amiable. ‘ _Seriously, how the hell?’_

“So you are all here because God granted you… permission, in a way?” Peggy asked, seeming nervous. John nodded. Alexander realized what she was talking about. She glanced around, becoming almost frustrated when no one else appeared to realize. “I have no such permission.”

“You didn’t speak with him?” Hercules tried to verify.

“I haven’t even seen him!” Peggy burst out. “How the hell could I have spoken with him!? I woke up without a clue where I was or what was happening! When I found Maria a decade later I almost slapped her. But she didn’t remember!”

“Maria!?” Lafayette asked, tensing at Alexander’s side. Alexander remained silent.

“ _Yes,_ Lafayette!” Peggy responded. “Maria! And don’t start going on about how she doesn’t deserve anything because-”

“I’m not.” Lafayette broke in, calm. “That was Alexander’s fault. A mistake, but it was still his fault. She deserved none of what that ordeal brought her; that much I know.”

Alexander sighed. Sometimes, he still couldn’t believe how badly he’d screwed up.

Peggy nodded in reply to Lafayette’s words. “I’m aware,” she said. “She’s…” Peggy trailed off and bit her lip, looking conflicted. “Forget it. Forget I said anything.” In different circumstances, Alexander might have pressed her. Not this time, though.

“Okay,” Alexander said. Nothing more, nothing less. The room suffused in silence. Peggy’s phone buzzed loudly on the floor and she scrambled for it with a soft swear. The screen had lit up, but she picked it up before Alexander could read anything. She glanced around the circle awkwardly as the brought the phone up to her ear and answered.

“Yo?”

Faintly, Alexander could hear Angelica say something. He couldn’t quite decipher what it was she said, but Peggy rolled her eyes.

“ _Yes_ , I’m good. Yes, I’m sorry I didn’t text you. No, I won’t forget next time. Yes, nobody tried anything. Yes, it’s good that you guys are almost back. Yes, water is wet- I’m just joking around!”

John snickered and Alexander hid a smile. He looked over to see that Lafayette and Hercules were both grinning; Burr had spaced-out staring at the wall. Alexander thought about nudging him but Burr seemed to come back to himself before he had the opportunity to scoot over and do it.

“Okay,” Peggy said, obviously in response to Angelica. “Okay, bye.” She hung up.

“So?” Burr asked, obviously a little confused. Now that Alexander thought about it, Burr was actually seated far enough away that he had likely been unable to hear Angelica’s voice.

“It was just my sister - Angelica,” Peggy supplied. The door loudly slammed opened and Angelica practically ran inside. Her eyes landed on Peggy and she seemed to calm. “Chill!” Peggy laughed.

“I _am_ chill. You forget to text back.”

“Look, after that whole thing-”

“- I was thirteen-” Peggy began, before being cut off again.

“- so I can’t just-”

“- Angelica, please-”

“- can you just text-” Angelica insisted. Peggy interrupted.

“- seriously, chill the-” Peggy responded. Angelica cut back in.

“- you owe me already!”

Alexander was frozen where he sat on the floor, not sure who to look at. Burr shot him a faintly hysterical look and Lafayette looked embarrassed on Peggy’s behalf. Odd how priorities could change from literal existential worries to maintaining status. Alexander liked to think that the latter set of priorities were preferable to the former.

Eliza re-entered the room and Alex shot her a smile and nod of acknowledgment. She blushed and tilted her head in response. John motioned her forwards as he looped his arm around Alexander, scooting closer to him and Lafayette.

“Back to Uno?” John proposed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact! All of the facts in here concerning Benjamin Franklin were accurate. I’m a geek, okay? I literally have a highlighted copy of his biography (the one by Walter Isaacson; I highly recommend it.) His religion is something that I find fascinating and something that I have only recently realized I had unintentionally included in this story. Also, Temple? The grandson I mentioned? Second fun fact: he was a fuckin’ fuckboy.
> 
> Okay, now that I’ve finished regaling you lot with obscure history, I’d like to thank you for reading and not yelling at me for my nonexistent updating schedule! For three weeks I had no access to any computer and for the past week I’ve been working my ass off for way too many things. I’ve really had fun finally writing this though, and I’m pretty sure that the next update won’t take nearly so long!
> 
> On a side note: COMMENTS ARE WELCOME PLEASE GO AHEAD AND YELL AT ME FOR NOT UPDATING FOREVER


	11. Discussion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So.... I got around to writing. Finally.
> 
> John and Alexander have a discussion.

The incarnate had fixed his gaze on the blank wall in front of him.  The ugly off-white color of the paint was whitewashed by the moonbeams. The same slanted beams that exaggerated the inconsistent texture of the wall with the pinprick-shadows cast across the surface of the it. The same beams that were probably contributing to Alexander’s insomnia. The dorm room had no curtains aside from the gauzy gray ones, which, of course, were stained by something that looked questionable; in short, Alexander had no way to block out the moonlight.

However, for once, the bed the Alexander laid upon met his difficult standards. The mattress was lumpy and an uncomfortable fold in his blanket - his only blanket (which he was currently using as he might a fitted sheet) - pressed through his t-shirt and into his side. Cool air constantly washed over him, thanks to Lafayette’s fan. It was honestly a shitty bed, but it made Alexander more comfortable than it likely had the right to.

For a while, the man lay there motionless, silently bemoaning insomnia and debating the merits of just pulling an all-nighter. He didn’t exactly have a ton of money left, and coffee probably wasn’t the best way to spend what he did have on him. And food. Shit. Sometimes, Alexander forgot that food - even water - were necessities. Give him the laptop, the phone, the coffee - but food? God forbid. Alexander groaned softly and closed his eyes. He’d need to get some sort of job.

He was mid-inhale when he heard a noise from behind him. It was hardly distinguishable from Lafayette’s fan, but Alexander heard it nonetheless. It sounded like the crinkling that handling a potato chip bag produced. Hadn’t Lafayette been eating Doritos earlier? Yeah, he had. Was the bag on the floor? Why would-

The mattress sank somewhat as somebody sat down on it. Alexander tensed up, still facing away from the intruder. He could hear breathing now. The person behind him shifted slightly… possibly reclining?

“Alex?” Oh. Okay, it was John.

“Hey.” His voice sounded a little strangled. Alexander realized that he hadn’t exhaled since hearing the crinkling noise of the Dorito bag and did, pretty much sighing with the force of it.

“How are you?”

Alexander’s eyebrows drew together in confusion; he didn’t roll over. “As well as I suppose I could be, under these circumstances.”

“Oh.”

Alexander wished he’d been able to detect a bit more emotion from the reply; now he didn’t know how to respond. “Yeah, I guess.” A pause. “What about you?”

“I’m screwed up,” John replied, his voice tinged with bitterness. At least he was to the point. “Really, really screwed up.” He sounded a bit choked-off, now that Alexander was paying attention. Alex rolled over, blinking as the moon’s beams fell across his face. 

John laid on his side, gaze trained on the piece of scotch tape that had somehow stuck to the blanket. He picked at it, dark hair accentuated harshly by the cold moonlight washing over the room. Alexander thought that the loops and whorls in the brown would have been interesting to see in full; most of it was held back by a rubber band, leaving only a few corkscrew strands to glint separately as they caught the light. Further down, the stray hairs faded into the shadow that had been cast over John’s collarbones. The same shadow that spanned almost tangibly, gaping like a slashed bedsheet to reveal prominent features such as John’s shoulder and the skyline of his body, before masking in shadow the rest. Only slivers of moonlight were caught by John’s arms and hands; even less by the wrinkles in his clothing. The result was a patchwork of body parts, held together by a dull gray that stretched for feet in some places. 

Looking up, Alexander could see that the contours of John’s face were shadowed so that his freckles seemed almost to disappear into his skin, while the contrast of moonlight on his cheekbones and jawline made them appear glassy and white. His eyes glittered from inside their pockets of shadow. John’s tan was hardly visible; the cold light had eradicated any traces of warmth in his skin. He was made of slate gray and muted brown, and the moon’s white glare spilled over him in exaggeration; it looked similar to what Alexander imagined taking white-out to a painting might.

Though John continued to pick at the tape, determined and not recognizing Alexander’s scrutiny, the movement didn’t break the still that enveloped the scene. Alexander’s inhale, on the other hand, did. 

John glanced up and finally pulled off the tape, flicking it away. “Yeah.”

It took Alexander a moment to remember what they had been talking about. “I’m sorry.” He removed the barrier between his thoughts and his words. When talking with John, keeping it up seemed an unnecessary effort. “I wish I could respond better. I care. I care a lot. I want to help. But I don’t know what to do.”

John smiled gently and Alexander wondered if it was pained; he couldn’t see it well enough to determine anything, thanks to the shadows. “I don’t know either, Alex.” Then, a quieter: “I wish I did.”

It was like a conversation of confessions. It’s efficient, at the very least.

“Do you have any ideas?” Alexander asked, hushed. He was careful not to wake up Lafayette or Hercules with his voice; probably should have cared to be more cautious about it sooner, though.

“Not…. no.” John looked almost ashamed, going by how his eyebrows drew together and how he bit his lower lip perceptibly. He also seemed a good deal frustrated.

“Okay,” Alexander responded, more to fill the silence than anything else. He tried to think up something. “Do you think it will ever go away?”

John shrugged. “I mean… as long as we’re alive, we’ll be alive under these conditions. Do you… do you realize how… how  _ alone _ we are? There’s Jefferson and Madison - and eventually Philip - but we don’t have anyone who could understand this, let alone believe it.”

Alexander opened his mouth. At first no words came out. Then he tried to default to what he had initially believed would work. “But we’re experiencing a new life. We can just rely on the experience-” He realized at the same time that John seemed to that the idea was implausible.

“No, Alex! We can’t! We can’t just wipe away-”

“I know!” Alexander cut in, frustrated with himself.

“Then why did you-”

“Old idea. I know it won’t work.I just keep forgetting that.” They were quiet. “Should Lafayette be a part of this conversation?” Alexander eventually asked, more to postpone answering than anything else. “Hercules? Peggy? Burr?”

John groaned softly, letting his head fall back and rolling over. He groaned again, far louder, into the mattress. Alexander watched him. Eventually John pushed himself up, sitting cross-legged in front of Alexander. “I don’t know,” he said. “Probably? I don’t know. I think it’s affecting Lafayette. Burr’s always kind of closed off. Hercules… he’s never really liked displaying any sort of nerves.”

Open as Hercules was, Alexander realized, John was right. No, Hercules never had liked any weakness in himself, even if he was more than ready to comfort anyone else. “Right,” Alexander acknowledged. “We’re here now though. So… let’s talk about how we can handle all this.”

John smiled. “You and your stoical improvement plans. I swear, you’re turning into Benjamin Franklin.”

Alexander gasped in mock-offence. “How dare you.”

“I dare.”

“Well… fuck you.”

John grinned. Hercules snored loudly. Both Alexander and John cast a worried glance over. Burr had left his jacket on Hercules’ bed, it looked like. The man had gone back to his own dorm a little after the Schuyler sisters had left and after Lafayette had withdrawn the promise that Burr would seek them out sometime the next day - today, Alexander realized. Fuck, it was late.

“Anyway… our stoical improvement plan…” A smile twitched at the corners of John’s lips. “What is it?” Alexander asked quietly. 

“Excellent question.”

Alexander’s phone buzzed on the corner of his desk and he swore under his breath, afraid that the buzzing would awaken Hercules, who’d always been a notoriously light sleeper. He turned it over carefully so that the lock screen shone a beam of washed-out light up to the ceiling. The notification on the screen read ‘1 new message.’ Alexander squinted at the text dragged his finger across it, making a small noise of annoyance when it displayed ‘contents are blocked.’ He still had the security settings he’d kept on his phone while staying with the LeAimses. He picked it up off the cheap, mahogany-stained particle board and typed in his password, not even caring if John saw it; it was nice being able to trust.

“‘1804?’” John murmured. “Isn’t that the year you-” he snorted in dark amusement. “Dude, that’s macabre.”

“Dude,” Alexander retaliated, “it helps me keep everything in perspective.”

John sobered.

After a moment, the lock screen disappeared and Alexander navigated to his messages. It was an unfamiliar number. Alexander tapped the message bar; by now, he’d adjusted to the illuminated screen. 

_ ‘Yo it’s Peggy. I got your number from Eliza. I think she thinks I like you. She seemed defensive. I’m letting you know now that you’d better stay the fuck away from her. Some things are unforgivable, hamilton. Anyway. This is my number just for reference. I’m tired and forgot to send something earlier. Send me Hercs + Lafayette’s + etc’ _

Alexander read the message in silence, then pulled up a new text, copying in the message info. John didn’t say anything. Alexander hadn’t bothered hiding the text from him. He did his best to stop the part about Eliza from bothering him. It was fair, after all. Peggy was definitely just in her requests. Right now, though, he didn’t want to think about it. Would he ever want to think about it? 

Honestly, avoidance seemed the best policy; this time around, there was no one aside from Hamilton that it could hurt. Eliza would get over a crush on a near-stranger far easier than she would one on a friend.

“Alexander,” John prompted softly. Alexander snapped back to his awares, realizing that his phone screen had gone black from inactivity. He tapped and re-entered his password, quickly pasting in Hercules’ number. He pressed send and the power button almost immediately after, rolling onto his side and setting his phone back down on the desk as it made it’s ‘power off’ shutter noise. They both didn’t speak for a while. “So? Stoical improvement plan?”John reminded Alexander.

“Yeah,” he replied quietly. Neither spoke and Alexander tried to think. 

“Any day now,” John hinted, after a bit. 

“Give me time, okay?” Alex responded, lightly. 

John chuckled. “We don’t have all the time in the world. And you can’t stop time.”

“I’m a motherfucking  _ sorcerer _ ,” Alexander whispers, vehement.

John lapses into a bout of near-silent giggles. “Sure, Alex.”

There was another pause before Alexander suggested a quiet: “What if we just ignore it?”

“.... That sounds unhealthy.”

“But it would work!” Alexander insisted. “We were given this second change so that we could  _ change _ some of this shit! Does it really matter, so long as we do that?” John was silent and Alexander took advantage of the quietude to do his best to convince him. “When we die, we’re going to get a break. So we just need to make it until then-”

“Stop, Alexander,” John said quietly. Alexander closed his mouth, more annoyed than embarrassed. “God,” John sighed. He was tenser than he’d been when they’d started the discussion. “Just… stop. Calm the hell down. You don’t get to do that. Don’t you remember? God didn’t force you into this. He  _ asked  _ you. He gave you this. This life isn’t some hard-won honor. This is a ‘hey, so, I like you, you can have another life if you want, do whatever the fuck you feel like, that’s why I’m doing this.’”

“That  _ not _ why he’s doing this!” Alexander hissed. “That’s not why God gave us this! He gave us this so that we could make the world better-”

“Did he?” John cut in, dangerously calm. He seemed annoyed, though not solely with Alexander. “I don’t seem to remember that.”

“Yeah,” Alexander scoffed, “sure.”

Cocking an eyebrow, John propped himself up with his elbow then crossed his legs, seating himself directly in front of Alexander with his hands neatly clasped and resting on the insides of his ankles. Alexander, still laying down, just looked up at him impassively. “So,” John murmured, meeting Hamilton’s gaze evenly with perceived intrigue, “what do you think he intended?”

A little uncomfortable with the scrutiny, Alexander moved into a sitting position himself. “Well, he likes this world. He wants it to be better. It wants it to be perfect but feels he cannot directly interfere. Or at least, he can’t manipulate it into what he wants using his own abilities. Therefore, he has inserted us to carry out the perfection that he seeks.” John was silent. Alexander, unnerved, motioned for him to speak with a quiet: “Go ahead. What do you think?”

“Alexander,” John began softly, “it isn’t what I  _ think _ that contradicts your supposition. It’s what I know.” 

Alexander inhaled, controlled, trying not to be annoyed with what he couldn’t help but to recognize as John acting egoistically. ‘ _ And what makes your knowledge so much more supported than mine? _ ’ he wanted to inquire. But he remained silent. 

After a moment, John continued. “God said ‘perfect’ once or twice in that monologue of his, sure. But he didn’t mean it.” As if anticipating Alexander’s want to cut in, John rushed on. “He said broken perfect, or injured perfect, or something along the lines of that.  _ That’s _ what he wanted. Do you think that he found the American revolution to be perfect? In the literary sense, not the injured one?” It was a moment before Alexander realized that John’s question had been genuine, not rhetorical.

“No. But it’s what came after that was perfect. That period of economical, political, and social growth? That’s what he liked.”

“Slow down, Alex,” John said. He never said that at all. I’m sure he enjoyed it, but he told us that enjoyed the  _ revolution _ . That he liked to see the whole situation eclipsed in tumult. I’m sure he doesn’t revel the death that it engendered, but he certainly seemed to like the change. Face it, Alex. He gave us second lives so that we could make change, not so that we could force perfection.”

“Still doesn’t mean that we can afford to take things slow,” Alex continued, feeling honor-bound to argue his side. “We just have responsibilities different than I interpreted, is all.”

“We can’t afford it?” John asked. “Alex, we’re not even twenty yet. We’re at King’s College- or Columbia if you want to go with the new name. We have had a single  _ day _ of classes. We’re going to make change no matter what. So let’s just chill, stay on top of things, and let it happen? You don’t need to go rushing into everything.”

There was silence for a few moments and Alexander was struck by how  _ odd  _ John was behaving. Gone was the fiery temper and lust for action, replaced by cool acceptance. It was rather unnerving. “I don’t have to,” Alexander said, his voice sounding far off to himself, “but that doesn’t mean that I shouldn’t. I can do it, so why not?”

“Can you?” John pressed. Then, rushing to amend the statement, his added: “Without unreasonable sacrifice?”

Alexander almost said yes. “Probably,” he said, forcing himself to meet John’s eyes.

“Really, though?”

The question annoyed Alexander, though he knew that it was rooted in reason. He could feel the struggle inside of himself, wanting to divulge the truth but feeling imposed to grin a lie and bear the price. He realized after a few moments that his silence had been answer enough and did his best to stifle the frustration that arose.

“Right,” John sighed. “Relax, Alex. You’ll get there-- change-- eventually. We all will. Just be patient, for once in your life. You’re ruining yourself.”

“You’re one to talk,” Alexander said, bitter. He could tell that John knew as well as he did that he didn’t mean it. After a moment’s hesitation, he apologized with a muttered: “Sorry.”

“‘S fine.”

The silence became pressing so Alexander rushed to speak. “What about feeling alone? Are we just going to suffer that? Is this little group,” he motioned around the room, “just going to endure for the rest of our lives? Are we just going to force ourselves to be satisfied with the isolation?”

He knew that he’d hit upon a genuine concern of John’s, going my the way that the other man paused, running his tongue over his lips and inhaled sharply. “To be honest? I don’t know. But that’s something we can’t change. That isolation won’t go away. You know I’m worried about it. I was literally telling you just ten minutes ago.”

“So?” Alexander asked. “What am I supposed to do?”

“Calm down-”

“I am calm!” Alexander insisted, heated at the implication that he was anything but.

“Yeah, right now, maybe. But overall. You’re driving yourself against the rocks, Alex. You’re rushing to make change and you’re destroying yourself in the process-”

“John, we  _ just  _ talked about it! I’ll stop, okay?!”

“Okay! Okay, great!” John huffed. “Thank you!”

“Yeah. No problem. Thanks for the lecture, really.” Afraid that he’d sounded sarcastic, Alexander added a: “I appreciate it.”

John nodded, half-smiling. “Yeah.” After another of the silent pauses that had seemingly plagued their entire conversation, John leaned forward and hugged Alexander, arms wrapping around him as Alexander buried his face in the other man’s shoulder. They sat there, huddled awkwardly against each other for a long while. Alexander could both hear and feel John's gentle breaths. Then, John withdrew and, though Alexander was grateful that he could adopt a less strained position by sitting back, he missed the warmth.

“Go to sleep, Alex,” John murmured, sliding off the bed and walking to his own.

“Right. You too.”

“I'm going,” said John, a hint of amusement in his voice.

“So am I!” Alexander insisted, his tone playful. He slid down onto the bed and tucked the cover over his chest. “See?”

“Why,” replied John, “indeed I do.”

Alexander didn’t say anything more and neither did John. Before he knew it, Alexander found himself drifting off. Instead of tensing, he sank into sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, I finally got around to writing. I'm sorry about the long wait, but promise that this story will be finished. The breaks between uploads will still probably still be extensive and I am incredibly grateful for you readers who have waited past this one. Comment if you're up to it, leave Kudos if you haven't and you want to, and I hope you all have a good week! :)

**Author's Note:**

>   
>  My tumblr is [erudammit](http://www.erudammit.tumblr.com)  
>   
> Come be strange with me  
>   
> It will be fun


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